PS 3525 
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1908 
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The Contented Rivals 

and 

Other Poems 



by 
James Mac Arthur. 



MICHIGAN CHRISTIAN HERALD 

INDEPENDENT PRINTING COMPANY 

83 PARK PLACE. DETROIT. 



A" 



r£6 



LIBRARY ot CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 9 

CLASS CL. XXc No. 



Copyrighted 1908- by 
ames MacArthur. Cass City, Mich. 



Dedication. 

This book of songs I affectionately dedicate to my 
ten children, however scattered far and abroad. In 
presenting it to the public I throw doors and windows 
wide open — to the friends I have known — to the 
strangers to whom I become known — inviting all to 
share in whatever treasures of heart or inspiration of 
soul I may be able to present by so doing — fearing no 
censure and offering no apology; assured that no 
grain of worth will ever be lost ; for 

"Doth not song to the whole earth belong? 

Is it not given wherever tears may fall, 
Wherever hearts may melt, or blushes glow — 
Or mirth or sadness mingle as they flow — 
A heritage for all." 



CONTENTS 

The Contented Rivals 5 

Life's Merging Mystery | q 

The Factories 11 

Snow Bound 17 

The Wreck of the Chicora ] g 

The Aged Guest and His Song 20 

Optimism of Nature 23 

The Little Wagons and the Autos 25 

Heraclitus and Democritus 26 

A Little While 31 

A Mother's Lament 32 

Trailing Arbutus 33 

Farewell to Sunny-Slope 34 

Heights and Depths 37 

The Dying Year 33 

The Lake Region 39 

Miracle Wonders 49 

Death of Duncan Campbell 42 

April 44 

Courage 'Mid Storms and Dangers . , 45 

Tested 4^ 

May '"' ..]'..] 47 

Lost Esbell 40 

June 53 

A June Cyclone Following 54 

Lessons from Flowers 55 

Autumn c^ 

Decoration Ode ,. . 37 

The Brooding Spirit 59 



Going from the Old Home 61 

The Untried Year , 62 

Sir Snow and Sir Wind 64 

Airship Sailing . 65 

Halting 66 

Our Lighted City 67 

The Divine Right of Man 63 

Letters from the Dead 71 

The Faces we Shall See no More 72 

Shaped as the Clay 74 

The Declaration of Independence 75 

Washington 77 

Expatriation 78 

Who Am I? 79 

Chips from Solomon's Basket . 80 

Katy Did 81 

The White Robin's Return 82 

Bob-o-link 84 

The Farmer 85 

The Farmer's Wife ... 86 

A Philosophic Hen 88 

Matrimonial Kickers 89 

Cigars and Cigarettes 91 

The Last of the Cass River's Famous Pines 92 

John Winters . . 94 

Wandering Willie's Reflections 95 

O. K. Haines' Wonderful Cow 97 

Miss Susie McDoo and Jim \& nack ... 101 

John Rustler's Novel Garage Invention 1 08 

The Song of the Cass 1 1 

At Sunset ..Ill 



THE CONTENTED RIVALS. 

Interviewer : — 

Sir Steam you've been a supplanter so long — 
Have taken on muscles so forceful and strong, 
You seem like a giant, a half-god of earth, 
More a king than a servant so great is your worth. 
All seasons, all weathers, unwearied you run, 
With snort like a war-horse when battles are won ; 
Your pathway is marked over continents wide ; 
You clamber up mountains with rents in their side ; 
You plough the rough seas and know every clime ; 
You've given the world a new thought as to time. 
You've set aside man-power and horse-power in 

ways 
That honored have been from beginning of days ; 
You've drank of the ocean, at pump-head and 

stream, 
And rushed into service where furnaces gleam ; 
Full often new changes concentrate your force 
Beyond all your early infantile course 
Which man well applies, tho' never can cage 
Whate'er be the marvel inventions engage. 
And the fire of your heart and heat of your veins 
Throb on, ever on, while your strength still remains. 
But hold! may some rival not yet supplant you, 
So oft the world changes the old for the new ! 

Sir Steam : — 

With a balance-wheel pause to steady my nerve, 
Pray who can this be who hopes better to serve? 
To exhibit a force to surpass mine, or deem 
There's aught better service can render than steam? 
I'm talking for business — the work I can do, 
No matter who cries, ''Change the old for the new ;" 
How foolish this course in things' novel untried. 



While sadly ignoring the faithful beside ! 
Tho' natural enough to feel proud of my place, 
I'm not thinking of this as I state now the case ; 
But the world — shall it make a retrograde move 
When the service it gets does so much to improve? 
How grievous to think all should fritter away; 
That triumphs hard won might yet end in decay ! 
But why should I speak thus, or inquiry press, 
With only a myth, or a bug-bear to guess? 
Some will-o'-the-wisp of invention to spring — 
Some new-fangled notion with butterfly wing- 
Some airship, or other things all in the air. 
The conceit may have sprung with my work to 

compare ; 
What of it? Such fool-toys e'er rivals to be? 
The world must go mad ere such danger I see — 
My pathway for service must ever be free ! 

Interviewer : — 

Sir Steam, yet there's one — sky or earth-born, the 

same 
Has been harnessed and hitched like a colt one 

would tame; 
In justice to you 'tis quite proper to tell 
What he is ; what he does ; near or far he may 

dwell ; 
In a sense close-companions you've been a long 

time 
And rode in the sky the same chariots sublime ; 
Yet withal you might remain strangers to be, 
Without dream of the future or changes we see — 
Neither one e'er suspected to what you'd attain 
In all your exhibits of thunder and rain 
Were it not that Invention works on and amain. 

When ocean-steams rose, grew dense, and sped on, 
By this one I speak of the clouds were outdone ; 



Like a glance of the eye was the speed of his glare 
As he swept the whole heavens and passed thro' 

the air; 
He seemed in his wildness no reckoning- to make 
Of aught to obstruct or the way he should take; 
To the heart of the mountain or depth of the sea 
He darted and felt he was everywhere free : — 
Man saw it and feared — so quick was the flash ; 
So dreadful what followed — the thund'rous crash; 
So murderous the bolt, so unerring the aim, 
'Twould seem human power this force could not 

tame, 
Till at last one more bold than the rest did con- 
trive 
To seize on the outlaw and take him alive. 

Tho' dangerous in ways, still the genius of man 
Admires his great power tho' hard 'tis to scan; 
Electric, elusive, half-tamed he has been ; 
Subjective, alertive, his service is keen; 
To him the great waterfalls now make their bow; 
The great nations greet him and learn to know 

how; 
They ride at his heels, (far more safe than a 

mule's), 
They speak in his ear, understanding the rules ; 
By him they light cities, they brew and they bake, 
All so skillfully done there's scarce a mistake; 
He has unified earth with so subtle a charm, 
'Tis freeing itself from the things that work harm; 
And tho' neither seraph nor demon, 'tis he, 
The sages of earth, say he's the power to be; 
And — with due respect — he may yet supplant you, 
So oft the world changes the old for the new ! 



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And while I remain such music shall leap 

The stars must in concert true time with us keep. 

Interviewer, meditatively : — 

What a sermon this 16 from explosives like th 
Competitors, yet in no sense to be i 

discord aroused by their rivalship might: 
No mutinous envy complaining of slight; 

No hint of base chicane to savor of graft; 
No artifice favoring underhand craft: 

log placed on wheels that freely should turn; 
No balk set on fires that ever should burn: 
What true aspirations! What virtue possessed! 
To make of the adverse a thing to be blest. 
And turn to intelligence ignorant awe 
To conform to the highest idea of law : 
Withal, should improvements the effete displ 
The factors may run neck and neck in the race 
With sweep like the suns — which oft as they 
There ariseth new suns — the world needs them yet. 
While Indutry cries, Set free every force. 
Let double relays take up service in cours 
The broader the sweep, the more urgent the call, 
The greater the recompense will be to all! 
But narrow the gauge to the stints that complain, 
'Tis a menace to all we may reck< m as gain : 
So widen the field whatsoever we do — 
We shall honor the old should we change to the 



LIFE'S MERGING MYSTERY. 

From spaces weird, utter, deep shadows that are ; 
Whether flight of a bird, or the blight of a star ; 
From seals of the secret that answers no call, 
From folds of the night standing forth as a wall ; 
Why comes unto us such a mystical lure — 
So much to engage, warn, draw, or abjure? 

It cdmes when the senses benumbed are in dreams; 

Tis heard in the rush and the hush of the streams; 

Tis seen as a sign in the spectral shroud 

Of the snow-whitened earth, or mist-kissing cloud; 

It comes as a spirit, lone, wandering forth 

To ask for a home — to regain a new birth. 

It haunts as a presence evasive in reach ; 
It teaches — perhaps what naught else can us teach; 
It startles when only the cricket gives sound ; 
A tongue gives to Nature in silence profound, — 
Free bird, or fair flower, the wilderness drear. 
Declare, in faint preludes, its joy and its fear — 

An echo that voices a mystical rune ; 

A song the more plaintive for want of a tune ; 

A break that reminds of the withering leaves ; 

A note the more tender, not knowing what grieves ; 

A flush that outreaches the swell of its chime ; 

A beat that knows not the last beat of its time — 

Each step in life's merging is still the unknown ; 

A colorless sky, to the leaden so grown ; 

Each secret discovered scarce more than a name ; 

Each pulsating passion decreasing in flame ; 

The chill so fast meted — so fast fades the dream — 

The deep sea soon swallows the gurgling stream. 



IO 



Tis thus, ever thus, it has been and shall be : 

The river forever runs on to the sea ; 

The sea, the deep sea holds its secret profound. 

While roll the huge billows and marked be their 

bound — 
The mystery never explained — nor the plan — 
Since a mystery all — and a part of it man ! 



THE FACTORIES. 



To sing of the past, we tell of its story. 
The future is dubious, we know not its glory ; 
The present is changing — in bursting its fetter — 
Why should we not hope 'twill be for the better? 

We study with wonder how early began 
Ingeniousness as 'tis recorded of man ; 
The force of his faculties, sageness, incision, 
To solve the enigma of life with decision ; 
His temporized trust when sadly adrift ; 
His. spirit, inventive, in many a shift. 

Ev'n yet it seems shadowed in birch-bark canoe. 
Or gondola risking to stem the lone blue ; 
Is traceable plainly in implements rude, 
Unearthed as the relics of times that were crude ; 
Quaint remnants of races whose progress failed soon ; 
Who waned and passed out, as so oft wanes the moon. 
While others held forth — waxing bolder, and won 
In march of the ages — and still they press on. 
Here as interest wakens in what has o'ercome, 
The mind drawing grandest of lessons therefrom. 
The muse is aware, too, of breasting a storm 
In watching each trend, philosophic in form ; 
An ominous mixing of passions at play 
Like encroachments of night confronting the day ; 
Yet as covert the night so the brightening sheen 



II 



Craves a "for or against," when the light it is seen 
And the "for or against," if the theme of the muse 
Is imperative, since either way we must choose. 

As living 'midst whirl of the wheel and the spindle, 
"What are the emotions our age should enkindle? 
We've smeltings and forgings, the air in vibration, 
Earth rumbling in throes of a second creation, 
Yet prize w r e not Scoria, seeking for jewels, 
Xor seedlings accept for the light of renewals ; 
Much saner and truer a fuller progression. 
The processes pleading for moral possession : 
The tangible joined to intangible molding 
Irrepressibly bent on a helpful unfolding ; 
Intelligence wisely allotted the helm 
When dang'rous cross-seas rush to o'erwhelm ; 
The right foot foremost that never goes halting; 
The step that ne'er wavers by gainless defaulting; 
The provident shown in our high-born pursuits — 
If lower than angels we're higher than brutes ; 
While asking for bread, we to get it more blest 
By expansion of mind, thro' a god-like behest ; 
T he grind of the world if the mill of our gristing. 
Above all to learn the true cause for existing. 

As past the stone age, even that of the iron, 

The steel age evolves to meet our desiring ; 

We thrust aside wheels of clumsy appliance. 

And abandon scant streams of risky reliance ; 

The Niagara we've changed from a thing of pure 

wonder 
And harnessed to work midst the roar of its thunder; 
We've given to steam with its engines and wheels 
A power to exoress what the human soul feels ; 
From lightnings half-caged electricity starts. 
And away and away like a winged-angel darts ; 



12 



Arms, pulleys, belts, gear, in detail of the minor. 
Are exhibits in use; and-man the designer; 
All fittingly lined to proportionate needs 
In the nature of things as our service proceeds ; 
E'er adding more strength to our spirit and will, 
And at least should assure we're not standing: still. 



l & 



How true all this past to the world's great Intent, 
The aim to make mankind more blest and content ; 
To lessen man's burden, his toil, his past sorrow ; 
To reflect on each day a still brighter tomorrow ; 
To devise more and more the true art of living — 
A just recompense in all getting and giving; 
Reforming, uplifting, to swell out the scanty; 
To multiply greatly earth's product of plenty ; 
To rush to the rescue where want has invaded 
With swiftest of carriers well larded and laded ; 
To make of each factory-wheel by intention 
The easement of toil and the drudge-part's pre- 
vention ; 
Yet so lofty this mounting, so spiral, so far, 
From high comes the call, "Beware what may mar!" 

From below wakes concern, shall we forfeit reward 
Thro' culpable carelessness — failing to guard ? 
Moreover, what confidence known to the world 
Neglect has not blasted — to ruin not hurled — 
With ignomy, ever the direst of all, 
A contributing self leading on to the fall? 
Whosoever the agent or whate'er the guise, 
Tho' consent but consists in soft-closing the eyes. 
Just think for a moment the part that is played 
By the suff'rer skiing to make what is made ! 



While the subtle approaches tho' pliant in song. 
The syren leads on to a dominance strong;, — 



13 



To half-bruise the head may but worse bruise the 

heel, 
And the vampire tho' vanquished the ghoul, may 

conceal, — 
See the Samson of strength in betraying his trust 
In a thrice is o'ercome and lies prone in the dust, — 
His one privilege left — how many its kind — 
A mill for a prison wherein he may grind — 
With the eyes himself closed ever hopelessly blind ! 

Irrespective of verse, or entangling prose, 

The search-light is flashed as the ages disclose, 

The signal to warn, held aloft to illume, 

Where the tyrant would taunt or daunt to presume : — 

A lord of the ancients asked bricks without straw, 

He a factory ran by imperious law, 

He made the poor poorer each step that they took 

The whole social fabric deridingly shook, — 

So wantonness reigned, and murder and dearth 

Till doubly accursed seemed this planet the earth : 

How, now a comparison, citing the old 

In an era wherein such improvements unfold? 

How challenge the present great enterprise-rush 

With hint of what yet may humanity crush? 

Or durst we now point the same rankling barb, 

A present-day evil tho' changed "be its garb, 

With the self-same trend of a tyrant in sway — 

And the toilers — the young and the old as its prey? 

We durst, if the search-light only reveals 
Y\ hat subtlety e'er by its glamour conceals : 
How is it with Labor, so glorified now? 
As a menial, scorned, must it abjectly bow? 
Must it sacrifice strength and God-given health — 
Be a pauperized self unto pamperized wealth? — 
The children — go find them in factory-hives — 



14 



Ask how the foul odors affect their young lives — 
Scant fare and long hours, do these help them to grow, 
Or do blights of environment thin the frail row? 
Worn mothers and daughters, ask what of their toil 
With only the ghoul on their labor to smile? 
Ask what of the pittance they get for it all 
Where intenseness of profit increases the thrall? 
Perhaps an apology's due to the old 
For comparing — if all of the story were told, — 
Midst whirl of the wheel and whirr of the spindle 
Please think what emotions this life should enkindle ! 

Equality, Recompense, Freedom and Right, 

If blazoned before us in letters of light, 

Are they here? And if not in full scope of their 

power 
Why not? And whence comes the fault of the hour? 
Man's brain as inventive has proved a success. 
Why then do not toil and toil's hardship grow less? 
How burns the reply, if 'tis legalized fraud 
We aid that works this, while so much we applaud ! 

In statistics wrought out for our "second creation," 
We dwell on the progress and growth of the nation ; 
But how shall we answer the cause for the drunken — 
The criminal status to which we are sunken ? 
As suffragists free what have we to utter 
Amidst all the clang of this business clutter 
Of laws made in aid of bottomless purses ; 
Of battery-wires with a surcharge of curses ; 
Of octopus-squeezers, and bombs for the market ; 
Of high-finance fraud, and they who would work it? 

Our "army and navy," while hailing "forever," 
Even that can we always from fraudulence sever? 
Emoluments gained at the public expense 
How sanction when shams of patriot-pretense ? 



15 



The petty, low trickster, with load-dice and wheel 
We fine and en jail, but the great we let steal. 

[Hence, "for or against," is no partisan spasm 
If ever we bridge or fill tip the dark chasm.] 

The chiming grows faint, "Sail on, Ship of State!" 
When drowned by the cry, "Pray what of the freight? 
Pray what of the steerage — how served are its messes 
As well as the state-rooms which favor caresses? — 
'Tis the voice of a System in reach of a plan 
To strengthen the Ship by its aid unto man; 
Not spectacular show, but men on the deck 
Chief factors to prove against failure and wreck ; 
'Tis the counter that spurns. "Those are tides, not 

the rock," 
When maelstroms are drawing us on to the shock, — 
The manning, the steering, the System, Command, 
The good Ship to guard 'gainst rock, shallow and 

strand. 

The song of the future — what shall be its story — 
A wilt-gourd of shame or a garland of glory? 
As we live, as we strive, as invincible we 
Shall say here are bounds even unto the sea ! 
Shall stand for equality; rights; for each other, 
Nor suffer the strong to oppress the weak brother! 
If machines we have made than ourselves are the 

stronger, 
Should we, as Americans, dally still longer? 
We make — and unmake — recast the old metal — 
Our prerogative 'tis all such matters to settle, — 
No ultras the line against units should draw 
And make their defense irresponsible law. 
'Tis Freedom's own soul this solid protesting, 
The wheel turned aright when too long it's been 

resting ; 

16 



The genius with gains universal and great ; 
The Union that binds in defiance of fate; 
The factors, the influences, piloting on 
To do as the future would wish we had done ; 
As the patriot-past would breathe on our trust — 
As a heritage held — as a stewardship just! 



All ours — ever ours — if we as the actors 

In accomplishment pledge this assurance as factors ! 

Glow, furnaces glow ! Whirr wheel and turn spindle ! 

Leap dynamo-sparks life anew to enkindle ! 

Blaze forth, and flash far, set wrong at defiance, 

Then beam, mild, an arc-light, with right in alliance ! 



SNOW-BOUND. 



Sift! Sift! Sift! 
How the snow-flakes shift ! 
How they scurry on and drift ! 
"Fill the highways up," say they, 
"Pile them higher yet — away ! 
Let us on man's pathway drift — 
Ho ! ye winds, blow strong" and swift !' 

Drear ! Drear ! Drear ! 
Is the scene both far and near; 
Who can force his way or steer? 
O! the roadways, where are they, 
Over ditches, fences, pray? 
Jingling bells nor whistle's toot 
Hear we not — they all are mute! 



17 



Up! Up! Up! 
Trade and traffic must not stop; 
We must work, tho' skies should drop. 
"Get the shovels, snow-ploughs out!" 
Everywhere is heard the shout. 
"Waste of time we can't allow, 
As the world is speeding now !" 

Lift! Lift! Lift! 
Charge till avalanches rift — 
Rocks must rend and mountains shift! 
"Clear the highways," man would sav, 
"Clear each obstacle away !" 
Progress is the age's gift — 
Naught must stay the wheels of thrift ! 



THE WRECK OF THE CHICORA. 
(Lost on Lake Michigan January 21st, 1895.) 

Wild was the wintry wind that blew 
Across Lake Michigan that night, 

When the Chicora with her crew 
Were tossed about in woful plight; 

The furious sweep that bore her down 

With strength of an Euroclydon ! 

On leaving port no signal rose 

To warn of the approaching storm; 

No augury of coming woes, 

Or conscious fear awoke alarm ; 

No sign appeared of frowning sky, 

No moan of troubled waters nigh. 



Till suddenly the tempest broke 
When far away upon the lake, 

And terrors of the night awoke 

Whereof such scenes alone partake ; 

'Twas like Death's gloom, the pall o'ercast, 

And each wild surge as if the last! 



Sweeping the lake and o'er the land 
The blinding drifts obscure the sky ; 

Friends mute with fear together stand 
Upon the beach with tearful eye ; 

Anxious for those far out, so dear ; 

Nor causeless is the growing fear. 



And louder still the shrieking blast 
Sounds like a storm-fiend from afar : 

And wilder grows the watery waste 
Amidst the ice-floes' thundering jar; 

While 'gulfing waves their terrors spread 

Throughout the darkness and the dread! 



Worsted, tho' brave, the unfaltering crew 
Still toil — Oh ! can it be in vain ? 

Battling for life, how much they do 
The boat to save, the land to gain ! 

Alas ! the crashing boat gives way — 

The struggle's brief, and lost are they ! 



And every soul on board is lost — 

No earthly power from this could save 

By angry billows seized and tossed, 
They sink into a watery grave, 

Or else are wafted to and fro, 

Their winding sheet the ice and snow. 



19 



The wreckage drifting to the strand 
Tells its sad tale of spreading gloom; 

And tidings speeding o'er the land 
Are those of sorrow o'er their doom; 

With grief-wrung hearts, disconsolate, 

Mourning o'er their untimely fate. 

And wide-spread are the sympathies 
Responsive to this tale of woe; 

Yet oft but common human ties ; 
The fuller grief few only know 

Of mourners who are lonely left, 

Of every earthly stay bereft. 

Soon winter's snow and ice shall melt. 
And summer zephyrs kiss the lake, 

And gladness in the change be felt 

Where now floats the Chicora's wreck 

But there are those who ne'er can see 

Those waters and not saddened be. 



THE AGED GUEST AND HIS SOXG. 

He knocked one evening at our door, 

Inquired could he be entertained — 
A stranger, yet an air he bore 

Of one who had some culture gained; 
And While his eye with age was dim, 

And locks were growing thin and hoar, 
A something seemed to cleave to him 

Betraying powers still held in store. 

We answered with a ready will 

That he could claim our humble fare; 

We all had common wants to fill, 
Of which we social cravings share. 



20 



A stranger-guest, to entertain, 

Ere this had led to blessings rare; 

So he was welcome to remain, 

Free to enjoy what we could spare. 

His heart was won ; its warmth and light 

More than in speech shone in his eye; 
Effusiveness can not requite 

All that is gained thro' sympathy. 
Of this, perchance, he thought — who knows 

What circumstances may indite 
Where want refuses to disclose 

The things recalled in abject plight? 

We led in converse, plying few 

Such questions as might touch his past; 
He was our guest; decorum due 

We would observe from first to last: 
His threadbare garments, nevertheless, 

Betokened his a life o'ercast, 
Which left it safe enough to guess 

He had known troubles in the past: 

What had he been ? From whence and where ? 

Still would engage our secret thought; 
While he, with tact so forceful, rare, 

Would touch such change as converse brought. 
Wide was his reach, while keen he peered 

Thro' ancient lore or present trend; 
Where progress smiled or faults appeared, 

With much to challenge or defend. 

Still spake he naught of boyhood days, 

Of home, of parents, aught of kin, 
Tho' tender thoughts in virtue's praise 

Might frankness stir or aptness win: 



21 



In strict reserve the personal part 

Was held close-locked, nor once gave way, 

Whate'er emotions of the heart 

Within their font might be at play. 

Then in a lull our daughter sat 

Before the organ — and the chords 
Were soft and plaintive. Touched with that 

Flowed equal melody of words — 
They had a touch of Scotia's tongue, 

And tuneful as the voice of birds — 
Intent we heard those numbers flung 

Whose spirit all the earth engirds : — 



The Song. 



''The linnet sings when spring is come, 
When flowers are opening on the lea, 

But sweeter still my soul to thrill 
Sings Christie o' the sparkling e'e. 

"'On yonder moor the heather blooms, 
And roses scent the air so free ; 

More charm and grace are in thy face 
Sweet Christie o' the sparkling e'e. 

"Tho' bards describe bright Juno's charms, 
Or Phoebus rising o'er the sea, 

'Tis my delight to sit at night 

With Christie o' the sparkling e'e. 

"Tho' I the wide, wide world should roam, 
And all the grandeur in it see, 

My soul would turn and ever burn 
To Christie o' the sparkling e'e. 

22 



"I ne'er can love another lass, 
None else my ain can ever be; 

Heaven spare the smart that I should part 
With Christie o' the sparkling e'e." 



Then softer still and plaintively, 

As a refrain repeated he : 
"Heaven knows the smart that made me part 

With Christie o' the sparkling e'e." 



The hour was late ; we both retired — 
Yet dreams would wake to find the key 

Why wailed this stranger's soul to part 
With Christie o' the sparkling e'e? 



He went his way at early morn, 
Of him no more to us is known ; 

Still, still, the pathos of that song is borne 
As if it voiced some grief his own : — 

The tremulous tone, the silent tear, 
Bespake it not some cause to mourn ? 

Did life once hold a treasure dear 



Lost to that aged man forlorn? 



-> 



OPTIMISM OF NATURE. 

What do the lone waves say 

In their low surge-sob on the beach 
"We kiss the shore as we may 

To gladden as far as we reach ; 
And bending low down hangs many a spray 

The blessing we give to beseech." 



23 



Ye sweet flowers, we ask of you, 

What returns for the storm's rude blast? 

"We drink of the sun and dew 

When the frown and terror are past — 

We lift up our faces, cheerful and true, 
And smile on the world to the last." 

Ye stars of the distant sky, 

We ask, why ye twinkle so bright? 

Methinks I hear your reply: 

"Our home is a region of light; 

We beam with a radiance pure from on high 
To lessen the gloom of the night." 



They hail us from every side, 

And our visions of life expand: 
Sweet voicings ! they come to abide 

Their mission could we understand. 
As angels of good they are near us to guide 

With touch of a magical wand. 

We may not dispel the cloud, 

Nor the lightning's scathe avert; 
With troubles we may be bowed 

Tho' ever upon the alert; 
But why should our folly the soul enshroud, 

Or fears from the right divert? 

Fond Nature ! how kind and true ! 

She treats us with never a slight ; 
She drops on our nights the dew, 

And wakes our affections with light ; 
Her blessings, her gifts, her rewards are not few 

In all and thro' all to requite ! 

24 



THE LITTLE WAGONS AND THE AUTOS. 

How bright and how cheery they race up and down, 
Of the fun never weary, and with never a frown — 
'Tis the little whirl-wagons they're urging with speed, 
And the little boy motors are so happy indeed. 

What joys in their noise; in yells what delight, 
On highways and byways — to left and to right ! 
Full speed is the signal to get out of the way, 
And what the small boy by his wagon would say. 

Sure enough, 'tis the stuff that goes to make men; 
So we lift up our hat to the juvenile train; 
Dash along; 'twon't be long ere knee-pants must go, 
But shall ever the fast pace give place to the slow? 

And the little whirl-wagons and all of this fun 
Shall they substitutes find, as in "dog or in gun," 
Or anything short of a whirl-about spin? 
Or leaving old sports, where shall new ones begin ? 

Half a little boy yet, although older he's got, 
With a wagon he's Johnny once more on the spot ; 
It is labeled an auto ; fit name, to be sure, 
As it ought to supply the heart-crave that won't cure. 

Heigh ! the big wagons see ! they race up and down ; 
They flash thro' the country, they whisk thro' the 

town ; 
Sure, the burly whirl-wagons are honking in speed, 
With "get out of the way" a clear signal indeed. 

Now the big ones and little ones seem to compete; 
Who gets the most fun, has the best of the treat, 
But we venture while hearing the little boy's shout 
With his little whirl-wagon, the auto is out. 



25 



O! the first little wagon, and what it inspires, 
Ne'er a duplicate finds in fulfilling desires; 
And while some inventions may aim to give joy, 
Oft they fail, and for this — they leave out the boy. 



HERACLITUS AND DEMOCRITUS. 

Heraclitus, a native of Ephesus, who flourished 500 
years B. C, was called the "Weeping Philosopher.'' 
He was of a gloomy and melancholy disposition, and 
is said to have been perpetually shedding tears on ac- 
count of the vices of mankind. 

Democritus, of Abdera, a celebrated philosopher of 
antiquity, is called the "Laughing Philosopher." He 
is usually contrasted with Heraclitus, the "Weeping- 
Philosopher." The names are used in a modern sense: 

Heraclitus. 

I look out on the world abroad, 

And on the ways of men ; 
I see them bear life's crushing load 

Of trial, toil and pain ; 
I see them trudge along the road 

With snares and dangers laid ; 
Or, hapless, lie in Shame's abode, 

Where every joy must fade:— 
I hear the great world sobbing deep, 
And with a weeping world I weep ! 

Democritus. 

In looking on the world abroad. 

And on the ways of men, 
I see them firmly bear life's load, 

Whate'er their toil or pain. 
I see men make a better road 

Than their forefathers laid ; 

26 



With palace-cars as their abode, 

All chariot glories fade: 
Their speed outstrips the wind by half — 
The world so races on — I laugh! 

Heraclitus. 

Man's labor is incessant toil, 

By furnace, forge or field ; 
For sweat of brow and drain and broil 

Tis little all will yield ; 
And then to guard from dreaded spoil 

What armaments to shield, 
He, to protect himself the while. 

Continuously must build : — 
When done, thro' treacheries so deep 
He's forced to weep — and I must weep! 

Democntus. 

Man's labor, though incessant toil 

By furnace, forge and field, 
All is not naught ; this drain and broil 

They recompenses yield ; 
Man gathers up the hoarded spoil 

Which Nature's depths would shield, 
And clothes him with its wealth the while 

His better home to build : — 
These comforts ease his toil one-half — 
The world progresses— and I laugh! 

Heraclitus. 

I saw a maiden fair, her cheek 

Was lovely as the morn 
When first each tint and tinge and streak 

The eastern skies adorn : 
I saw her wooed; and in a week 

She felt a lover's scorn ; 



27 



She sighed as if her heart would break, 

Forsaken and forlorn, 
With moanings on the night-winds, deep 
And pitiful — it made me weep! 

Democritus. 

I saw a maiden fair, her cheek 

Seemed lovely as the morn ; 
Some said each tint and tinge and streak 

'Twas rouge that did adorn: 
I saw her wooed; within a week 

She met a lover's scorn. 
But she — she had no heart to break. 

She could not be forlorn : 
Her true self still was left — 'twas chaff— 
And the denuding made me laugh! 

Heraclitus. 

There is a love that all should bear 

To country and to kin; 
This spirit low and high should share. 

And mutual friendships win ; 
But, Oh ! it is a grace so rare, 

The patriotic flame, 
While black intrigue and every snare 

That mortal tongue can name 
Forestall true worth — and we must reap 
Bare stubble fields — where thousands weep! 

Democritus. 

The love that every heart should bear 

To country and to kin 
Heaven has decreed most men should share 

And mutual friendships win ; 
And thro' this jewel, precious, rare — 

This patriotic flame — 

28 



There's many a black intrigue and snare, 

Too numerous to name, 
So turned that rogues are made to quaff 
The cup they fill— and so I laugh! 

Heraclitus. 

The holiest place on earth we know 

Is true Religion's pale; 
Tis virtue's friend and vice's foe — 

'Tis duty without fail ; 
But when 'tis prostituted so 

With selfishness and pride, 
Or ranker vices thro' it grow 

Than ever grew outside, 
Has Sin a mystery more deep? 
Or can we see it and not weep? 

Democritus. 

The holiest place on earth we know 

Is true Religion's pale ; 
'Twill drive each desecrating foe 

From it and never fail : 
It grants repentance, but even so 

It cannot foster pride ; 
Its law demands if vices grow 

They shall be thrust outside, 
E'en though it leaves the lesser half — 
'Tis best when done — and I shall laugh ! 

Heraclitus. 

Ah ! gloom of earth ! How sad the day 
That calls the darkness light 

By those who still refuse to pray, 
And love to dwell in night; 

Who truest records still gainsay, 
The chart of life, wherewith 



29 



We only can be safe— and aye 

They call it fabled myth, 
Or partly true— what part to keep 
We know not-and I'm left to weep. 

Dcmocritus. 

Grant earth has gloom: at first the Day, 

The offspring of the Light, 
Drove darkness back: so let us pray 

It now may scatter night; 
\nd who can finally gainsay 

The jewelled Truth, wherewith 
All righteousness is known— and aye 

Will prove no fabled myth? 
God made the world-in our behalf 
He rules it still— and I shall laugh! 

Heraclitus. 

Oh! what a whirl is life! Its calm 

Is but a gathering storm! 
A dirge is in its sweetest psalm ; 

Its pleasures wake alarm: 
For its deep wounds where is the balm, 

Or cordial for its pain, 
When customs are a ghostly sham 

\nd loss absorbs its. gam ? 
For millions plunged in misery deep 
My soul is grieved, and I must weep! 

Dcmocritus. 

The whirl of life I love ; its calm 
Means sunshine and not storm; 

Life's dirge may prove the sweetest psalm- 
Its peace still all alarm; 

For all its wounds there is a balm, 
A cordial for its pain ; 



30 



Life's truest customs are not sham, 

Naught can absorb its gain : 
To live aright is living half 
The life beyond — and so I laugh ! 



A LITTLE WHILE. 



A little while to us is given 

Our lives to live, to weep or smile ; 

Or short or long, the longest even, 
Continues but a little while. 

The pain of being or the passion 
Of joy our troubles to beguile; 

The pomp of pride, the ruder fashion, 
But please or pain — a little while. 

We love, and every fibre tingles 
Responsive to affection's wile ; 

As fades the rose, so beauty mingles 
With earth, and in a little while. 

We cherish hopes, and flashing tapers 
Light up the heights to which we toil : 

Our mountain clothed with misty vapors 
We reach within a little while. 



We grieve, and foolish is our grieving 
O'er idols broken, fates that foil ; 

O'er friendships that were so deceiving- 
Which were so but a little while. 



Our hearts may quail and flesh may quiver 
When Death would claim us for its spoil- 
There is no death beyond the river — 
We pass it in a little while. 



31 



Then look we to the day of gladness, 
Where joys unfading- ever smile, 

Tho' through the crucible of sadness 
Tis reached — 'tis but a little while. 

A paradise of glory given, 

A blissful rest from weary toil, 

A thousand years — the days of heaven- 
At length shall seem a little while ! 



A MOTHER'S LAMENT. 

Said Bennie, "Dear Ma, it is sister"-^— 

The fever was on him just then — 
"She says that she knows that I missed her, 

But soon I'll be with her again." 
Then over his face came a paleness, 

A moment how strangely it shone! 
And 'round us there crept such a stillness 

It 'wakened the wish 'twere my own ! 

And tho' for a time he half rallied. 

All here was a blank to my child ; 
The brow in expression so pallid, 

I knew he from earth was exiled. 
And faintly I heard him say, "Sister," 

As drawn by a magical wile, 
And in a low murmur, "I missed her" — 

How sweet for a moment his smile ! 

My yearning is that of a mother ; 

So vainly I seek for relief ! 
This world is my home — though another 

May help in assuaging my grief! 
My Bennie is'gone to his sister, 

But mine is the loss and the moan ; 
His sister in sorrow I missed her. 

And Bennie now leaves me alone ! 



32 



I dream of my children so often — 

They beckon afar like a shade ; 
Their angel-face smile it may soften 

Like that which on Bennie's once played, 
But no one can tell how I missed them, 

The tears — the lone tears, I have shed, 
That gush as when last I had kissed them. 

And knew that forever they fled. 



TRAILING ARBUTUS. 

Fair, modest, wildwood flower, 

Blooming in loveliness : 
Pale in shade-tint, or pink with glint 

Of warm sun on thy face — 
How fragrant is thy bower 
As falls the April shower 

On field or wilderness ! 

Who would not love to roam 
To greet thee, child of Spring? 

Pensive to share thy fragrance rare — 
Thy beauty opening — 

To share the welcome of thy home, 

Which from the scented arbors come 
Like young love blossoming? 

Come to my heart, sweet flower, 
And waft thy fragrance there ! 

Thy lovely form thro' bursting storm 
Shall teach supremest care ; 

Gladsome shall be my bower 

When thro' each changing hour 
This confidence I share ! 



33 



I 

FAREWELL TO SUNNY-SLOPE. 

(On the author's parting with the Elkland Farm, 
Tuscola County, Michigan, 1903.) 

I. 

We christened the old farm home Sunny-Slope, 
For that was the lay of the land. Our hope 
Was like the pure sunshine thro' the long years, 
Tho' sometimes it drooped like a rainbow in tears; 
Our prospects were fair from without, from within, 
Since life's what we make it. Busy we've been 
With the toil of our hands those twenty-five years, 
Tho' short now that time in the distance appears : — 
Twas twenty-five years we dwelt on this farm, 
Thro' sunshiny days, also times of alarm- 
Especially when by the Great Fire swept, 
Which silently, stealthily on us had crept, 
Then raged in full fury, a demon of war. 
Devastating all, both near and afar. 
Oft vain was the striving against it to cope, 
Yet spared was the home on fair Sunny Slope, 
Also our lives. We lived the farm toil to resume, 
And see this sad waste rise in beauty to bloom ; 
Nor was there an idler in all that we reared, 
Nor one that shrunk back where duty appeared; 
Whether 'twas in or out, nothing would vex, 
Xor was there a shirk with excuses of sex, 
So "moss" — that was something that never got time 
To grow on our backs, in prose or in rhyme ! 

II. 

Friends say as we meet, "You're a moss-back no more," 



34 



Since the farm has changed hands. Whate'er is in 

store 
We cannot foretell in its gain of its loss — 
This we know, there's no sense in what is called 

"moss/' 

As applied to the farmer and placed on his back; 
A sort of opprobrium, or of something a lack 
As implied — as 'twere too much of the rough * 
For which the "smart set" the farmer might scoff: — 
"Stop here," we reply, "ere you fashion your grin; 
Toil has its rough honor, 'tis not gilded like sin; 
The bread the world eats, the dainties it smacks, 
Shall it take, and the farmers greet as but moss-backs ? 
The world is condemned for the slurs it would paste, 
Since service is greater than idling or waste ; 
And if there's at all something needing a roast, 
'Tis the parasite-life with its pride and its boast, 
With its fossilized forms, its stunts and its stints 
By which its own character plainly it prints. 
True life is progressive — the dead past is past ; 
'Tis toil opens up the world's treasures vast; 
Tho' toil has its grime, 'tis soon washed away, 
While moss grows on tombs, not the men of today. 

III. 

Thus we've stood in the ranks of the toilers, and we 
Shall stand by them yet ; here the breathing is free ; 
We change in our callings, we choose what is meet ; 
No harm to wear out, but to rust is defeat. 
What are we here for? Ask we this every day. 
And we never can idly think life is but play ; 



35 



While much that respectable seems with its gloss, 
When we probe it a little we find there the moss — 
Moss that feeds on the bones of ancestral gain, 
But for mankind does little or nothing, 'tis plain. 
Self-indulgence and uselessness are without sense, 
Notwithstanding at times their airs of pretense : — 
O! give to us ever the strenuous life, 
Overmastering obstacles, hardships and strife ! 
This we've welcomed ourselves, and an heirloom 

would leave 
To those who come after us here to receive ; 
This lesson, ingrained, was the school of our hope, 
The teaching that fanned with its breath Sunny-Slope. 

IV. 

But we bid you farewell, our home of the past; 
We love you, and cherish you shall to the last ; 
While we think of the friends entertained at our board, 
Of memories inspired and of gladness restored — 
Oi the friendships so true — tho' sad partings we've 

had— 
There are thoughts that make even sadness less sad. 
These memories are treasures laid up in our ark, 
When the Pillar that guides appears cloudy and 

dark : — 
Of the children we think, far scattered, whose glee 
Oft showed us how happy dear childhood can be : 
What hailings they gave us when absent awhile ! 
What innocent fondlings our cares to beguile ! 
What a magic home has when the spirit is true, 
Tho' much we might name now recedes from the view ; 
Yet a benison 'tis, tho' in tears we should grope. 
With thoughts of the past and of thee. Sunny Slope ! 

36 



HEIGHTS AND DEPTHS. 

By the Goodness that descended 

To a world in trouble sore, 
By the Glory that ascended. 

Bless us, Spirit, evermore. 
Twas the Son of God' descended, 

Of our sins the burden bore ; 
Twas the Son of Man ascended, 

Glorified forevermore ! 



Lo! 'tis witnessed that He liveth, 

His an everlasting sway ; 
That the comfort which he giveth 

Shall be endless as the day ; 
That the Crucified still liveth, 

Rose to Heaven and marked the way 
That eternal life He giveth 

Unto all who Him obev. 



O ! thou gracious Spirit, guide us ! 

Promised Comforter and Friend ! 
For our daily need provide us, 

To our daily wants attend ; 
By the words of Jesus guide us, 

Of the Father's wisdom lend; 
Cheer our hearts, or if to chide us, 

Keep us safely to the end. 

Earthly wonders, at your portal 

Lo ! we stand, yet little know ; 
We the things beyond the mortal 

Oft the Spirit crave to show. 
Heavenly wonders, at your portal 

We your heights how far below ; 
Shall it prove the joy immortal 

Ever searching God to know ? 



37 



THE DYING YEAR. 

The summer leaf must fade and fall, 

The summer flower must die, 
And change of season pass o'er all 

The earth and beauteous sky; 
Time has its periods to mark, 

The flush of joyous spring, 
The glory that removes the dark, 

How early these take wing! 

What change appears in shadowy cloud. 

The dim and shortened day 
That wraps the earth as in a shroud 

To cover its decay? 
We hear it in the fitful breath, 

The moaning of the wind, — 
Can we mistake the voice of Death 

When we such tokens find? 



The year had much to call its own, 

Endearing and endeared ; 
Yet swiftly and so early flown, 

With field and forest seared, 
It sees in these its offspring dead, 

A weary, wasting time ; 
Oh ! what is life with all things fled, 

The glory of its prime? 

Go ask the warrior on the field. 

With comrades prone on earth ; 
The mother who no more can shield 

The children she gave birth ; 
The patriot of his country reft. 

The cause for which he'd die ; 
Ask these when, naught that's dear is left, 

Can aught life's wish supply? 



38 



One answer to the general call 

Of universal claim 
Is this: "When all that's dear shall fall, 

We wish our fate the same." 
If Nature voices this behest, 

The human heart so dear, 
We wonder not, as seeking rest, 

So dies the dying year. 



THE LAKE REGION. 

Smiles the Lake region, with shore lines in order, 
Laved by the waters, with beauty impearled; 

In the fair setting that graces thy border 
Rich art thou, gem of a continent-world ! 

Kisses of suns, and clouds in their skimming, 
Bring forth thy flashes of varying light ; 

Opal and star have their seasons of gleaming, 
Thou hast the beauty of day and of night. 

Summer would court thee, and ardently kiss thee- 
Reach to the heart of thy goodliest gem; 

Winter in grandeur of state may not miss thee — 
Thou art in loveliness dear unto them. 

Gifts of the forests and sweep of the rivers, 
Wealth of the prairies and riches of mine, 

Throb of the progress that pulsates and quivers, 
Ever in march are enlisted as thine. 

Joyous thy children would drink of thy fountains- 
They of the city or husbandry's toil — 

Glad there are no inaccessible mountains 
Acting as barriers — whence to recoil. 

Far in the region of parched deserts, thirsting, 
Reddens and threatens the sun in his glare ; 



39 



Thine the rich ozone of rain-clouds in bursting, 
Thine the full soul of earth's life-giving air. 

Beauty and Goodness, so joined, are a wonder — 
Tilts of the olden to opposites hurled ; 

Some have the common clay, some have the grandeur 
Thine the full gems of our continent-world. 



MIRACLE WONDERS. 

Empty and vapid, uncertain in end — 
Tiniest veins which no pulsings attend — 

Subtle escapings. 

Indifferent shapings — 
What if environments fail you of breath — 
Spiritless still and akin unto death? 

Quickening struggles in signal of life, 
Issuing portents so veiled in their strife ; 

Who can be wiser, 

Scribe or adviser, 
If but possessing the wisdom of earth — 
Having ne'er known the secret of birth? 

What of life's dreaming, tho' trustful and pure? 
Hangs there a shadow not still to endure? 

Wars universal 

Darken rehearsal — 
Fruit of the baneful upon us that fell — 
Here are exotics, and here they would dwell! 

What of our weeding, when ranker they stool? 
What of the vices of lessening rule — 

False apprehendings, 

Cynical tendings — 
What of belittling faults that .are ours ? 
Spurning true mastery wreathed in its flowers? 



40 



What is this Mystery? Who the Unknown? 
Where is His footstool — whence is His throne? 

Where is His building — 

Whence is its gilding, 
When the low scaffolding seen is no more — 
Naught but the Mystery left to adore ? 

Things are incredible only for cause — 

That which is higher holds higher its laws— . 

Truths that are older, 

Seemingly bolder, 
Are but the seers who on prophecy draw — 
Why should philosophy part with this law? 

Why should mere subtilties warp in review 
Records accredited long to be true? 

What is a miracle? 

Speaketh an oracle — 
This from its temple declareth its own — 
What tho' to others this God be unknown ! 

Look to the stars in sweeping their rounds, 
Uttering harmonies, joyfullest sounds! 

Look at creation, 

At every station — 
Marvels on marvels here set in array ! 
Exigence holding omnipotent sway! 

Hence, as a governing law from the first, 
Higher the reaches of interest burst- 
Needlessly, never — 
Needed forever — 
Hence is the River of God for our thirst, 
Blessing the earth as 'tis barren, accurst. 

Flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, 
E'er to assimilate — still to atone — 



41 



Has not example 

Proved that the ample 
Never has failed in our lower estate? 
Why not accept it in all that is great? 

Should the last seizure the universe rend, 
This our high Oracle calls not the end — 

Miracle wonders, 

Roused by its thunders, 
Now shall awake in their mightiest might — 
Name we them less as they break on the sight? 



Lines on the 

DEATH OF DUNCAN CAMPBELL, 

Poet, of Warwick, Ontario. 

Tidings of death fall on my ears — 
The death-knell of a noble friend, 

Companion of my early years, 

Whose memory my soul reveres, 

The vision of whose life appears 
Hallowed and honored to the end. 

Oft Heaven I've thanked we e'er had met 
And worshipped at the muse's shrine; 

A master-spirit his to whet 

Aspirings that bring no regret. 

Removed from earthly jar and fret, 
Which give to life a sense divine. 

Older than I by a decade, 

His thoughts were then like ripened fruit, 
While mine but buds and blossoms made, 
Or Fancy much too idly strayed, 
And thus a part capricious played 

In our congenial pursuit. 



42 



And yet so warm his friendship ran, 
He flooded all my soul with song; 

So full of manhood was trie man, 

In swift response the current ran; 

It helped me higher planes to scan 

With strength sustained to make me strong. 

To him broad Nature was a scroll 
That spangled with celestial gems, 

Whose beauty garlanded his soul 

With ravishment beyond control, 

Which brought within his reach the roll 
Of fadeless crowns and diadems. 

His was the poet's eye and fire, 

Yet void the faults we oft deplore ; 
By curb and rein he held desire 
Firm to the standards we admire — 
Free from the soul's enthrallments dire. 
Where oft they fail who highest soar. 

This gave a power unto his life, 

And satisfied his humble sphere; 
It woke those aspirations rife, 
To brother-man, to cherished wife, 
To peace, as Heaven would eschew strife — 
To all we're called to honor here. 

And thus to him I'd tribute pay 

With memories wrapt in potent good; 
Albeit I falter in my lay, 
So dark, so saddened seems the day 
Since that dear time that's passed away. 
When we close friends together stood! 

No wonder that my spirit droops 

While asking, "Have I lost my friend? , 



43 



Is this the end' of all our hopes 

That with the mortal vainly copes 

Until the mystic curtain drops — 

' To us, to all is this the end?" 

Ah ! surely not : there clings the cheer 

Heaven to the sorrowing would declare, 
Bringing the rich immortal near 
By those who once walked with us here— 
The good, the noble of this sphere. 
Fitted that high estate to share. 

There more than streets of shining gold, 

Or wonders of angelic birth, 
A higher glory shall unfold 
Love, goodness, raptures uncontrolled, 
In meeting in immortal mold 

The cherished and the loved of earth. 



APRIL. 

Cold from the Arctic north, 

Puffs of the Southland's breath ! 
Ye struggle along the earth — 

A battle of life and death ! 
One with a chill and a thrill 

The bud in its bursting would close; 
The other, with warmth to fill. 

Would show us the heart of the rose ! 

Songsters, we see you again ; 

Ye sway on the leafless bough ; 
Ye sing, altho' feeble the strain, 

"The cold earth reviving is now." 
Ye quiver altho' ye are here, 

And mix with the feathery snows — 
How know ye summer is near 

While the breath of winter still blows? 



44 



Moody the season is yet — 

April so sullen and strange! 
Today may be sleety and wet. 

Tomorrow, sun-glimpses for change. 
O ! see the snow fly through the sky ! 

Why with the joy interpose? 
Why will those spasms not hie, 

And leave us to warmth and repose? 

Cold from the frowning North, 

Flee from the South-wind's breath ! 
Life on thy mission go forth — 

Show us thy power o'er death! 
Touch the world's chill with a thrill, 

Show us the passion that glows ; 
Gladden the whole earth, until 

It blossoms and blooms as the rose! 



COURAGE 'MID STORMS AND DANGERS. 

Are these the acts of God, 
In awe, or more irreverence, the creature asks, 

To ruin man's abode 
With the dire wreckage that our pride unmasks — 

Destroyed as with a nod? 

We view the ocean's power. 
Where billows rise in foam, and roar and break 

In sanguinary hour, 
When the deep yawns and claims the riven deck — 

Engulfing to devour. 

They tread on danger's verge, 
And build where mountains burst and slake 

The earth with torrents large. 
Which bury cities, from which never wake 

Their silent charge. 



&>' 



45 



We ask why tempt the deep, 
Where stoutest ships and bravest hearts lie low? 

Why hope the fields to reap 
Upon the pathway where tornados blow 

And winds like demons leap? 

Ask we of God or man? 
How difficult the answer ; yet we see 

Ever since time began 
The courage of our race — as it should be — 

Thus it has ever ran, 

All dangers still to brave, 
On sea or land, in every zone and clime ; 

The heritage God gave 
'Tis ours to cherish, to make more sublime, 

Where'er shall be our grave. 



TESTED. 



A tribute to Hon. William McKinley and his de- 
voted wife in their sacrifice during their great finan- 
cial strait. Mr. McKinley said of this poem they 
would always value and keep it. 

Where do we find the gold of earth? 

Not on the shallow shore 
Where common things may claim their birth, 

Existing, and no more ; 
'Tis Nature's agony brings forth 
Her wealth of richest ore ! 

Where do we find the purest gems 

That deck the human brow ? 
'Tis not in dust of diadems 

That make a pageant show. 
But in the honor true that stems 

Misfortune's crushing blow. 

4 6 



Brave hearts ! where honor may not swerve, 

Nor aught with cavil hedge ; 
And woman's love as true to serve, 

Affection's privilege, 
By sacrifice without reserve 

To meet each" sacred pledge ! 

Earth, narrowed down to standards gross, 

May say, perchance, they fail ; 
But they are heroes in their loss 

Who in life's tests prevail; 
A golden ladder make their cross 

Sublimer heights to scale. 

A generous spirit sweeps the land — 

The goodness of the good — 
It needs no formal pledge to band 

In truest brotherhood ; 
And where earth fails to understand, 

By Heaven 'tis understood. 



MAY. 

May is here with grace of graces, 
With embroideries and laces, 
Coronets o'er flowery faces — 

Robes of splendor — 
Visitant of earth's waste places, 

Wistful, tender! 

Note to note the birds are singing, 
Chirp to chirp is heard the ringing; 
Spray to spray its blossoms flinging, 

Gladly meeting! 
One and all each other bringing 

Gifts of greeting! 



47 



Loving skies our world encircle ; 
Gems unto each other sparkle ; 
Earth — not always earth will darkle 

As in sadness ; 
But to glory patriarchal 

Wake in gladness ! 

Day by day there rings the chorus 
Of the good that's seen before us, 
Catching harmonies and glories — 

Thrilling, sighing — 
Living for us, watching o'er us — 

Help supplying! 

Nature! unto thee we're debtor, 
With thy bonds a mystic fetter ; 
All thy voices goodness utter — 

All outlining 
Virtues, that should make us better 

In divining! 

And sweet May. bloom-blushing maiden, 
With thy floral glories laden — 
In thy newness all-pervading, 

Glow and gladden — 
With inimitable shading 

Ne'er to sadden ! 



LOST ESBELL. 



Lo ! manifest services rendered 
The spirit in aiding to scan, 
Appeal in the way they are tendered 
As much as the quest of the man — 
We follow the trend that is olden, 
Whate'er by the past is withholden — 
Our faith being wrapped in the golden 



4 8 



That glows irrespective of plan — 
Why trouble with formulate plan? 
The stream runs a-quiver to join the great river- 
The river seems made without plan — 
But what prompts the spirit of man? 

O, life, 'tis thy morning unclouded — 
Time speeding so joyous in flight; 

The prospects of greetings unshrouded — 
With chorals and songs of delight! 

The day-spring of life we esteem it; 

All Nature delighting to hymn it: 

Sweet Light ! Ah ! but where is the limit 
Whereby it opposes the Night? 
The treacherous, cowering Night — 

The underworld pall that menaces all, 
To darken the world and the light — 
To blacken the soul with the night? 

Remembrance outweighs all forgetting — 

The morn, tho' it fled, 'twas so pure — 
The star of my soul ere its setting — 

The joyance of love and its lure ! 
Sweet Esbell ! bright star of my being — 
As known — as the shadows were fleeing — 
With all I hold blissful agreeing. 

To me what a ravishment pure ! 

There augured no ill to endure ! 
Her angel-smile given, a pure ray from heaven. 

Could only to heaven allure — 

To herself or to heaven allure. 

I worshiped, and knew it was spirit ; 

It drew out my soul from its void — 
That void froiir old we inherit, 

By only one power destroyed — 
Her name, with her spirit I breathed it ; 



49 



The halo I hailed that enwreathed it; 
The heaven and all that bequeathed it, 

When, alas ! she to me was denied — 

To me was that heaven denied — 
Oh ! the sadness and gloom and pall of the tomb 

By which all our hopes are belied! 

And my spirit died, too, as she died. 

As woful the earth when 'tis riven 
To spread consternation around ; 

As swiftly fierce tempests are driven 
With wasting their path to surround, 

So came the stern Reaper, unbidden ; 

So smote by remonstrance unchidden ; 

So yawned on my pathway the hidden 
Dark gulf which no plummet can sound — 
Fell the heart-woe no plummet can sound — 

The chill of despair that chills even prayer 
My desolate soul to astound — 
Must it ever my soul thus astound? 

In search of the comfort that healeth ; 

In search of the wisdom that guides ; 
In search of the light that revealeth, 

More deep seems the darkness that hides. 
The cycles of change are around us ; 
Their shrines long deserted astound us; 
Their deep-chambered tombings confound us — 

Of their far-life nothing abides — 

There's naught its first purpose abides ; 
Of all that has wrought how plainly 'tis taught 

That passing the line that divides, 

For aye 'tis a line that divides. 

To darken all vision it lingers 

As if 'twere of evil the womb; 
It shapes and re-shapes with its fingers 

50 



The abysmal folds of its gloom — 
A destiny-dread is its frowning; • 
A breaker to close o'er the drowning, 
With pitiless mockery crowning 

My sorrow, my loss, and my doom — 

My bright sunken star and her doom — 
A shriving the dead that profaneth instead, 

If love knows no burial or tomb — 

If life ceaseth not with the tomb. 

How dismal this region ! its terrors 

That press, that demand I should yield ! 
With troops of more dissolute errors 

To hem on this combatant-field ! 
To challenge is only light armor; 
To parry — the onset grows warmer ; 
No talisman acts as a charmer — 

My buckler is broken and shield — 

I neither can conquer nor yield ; 
O, strength of the mountains ! O, life of the fountains ! 

At such a time nourish and shield ! 

I faint, tho' I quit not the field. 

Walled darkness, the shadow of being, 

The unseen refusing to smile, 
The distant — the vacant — un freeing — 

The mystery deepens meanwhile ! 
Ah! longing desire but increases — 
Nor furnishes aught that releases — 
The pain of the heart never ceases 

With thought of a fruitless exile — 

Like one from his kin in exile — 
In grief of the living earth gains of her giving, 

Yet ashes to ashes ne'er smile 

With soul still from soul in exile. 

Amidst all the pain of this thwarting 
I may not feint-solace partake, 



5 1 



Or lightly assume that our parting 

A bond more enduring can make : 
I cling to the past and its meetness, 
Enshrined in a sacred repleteness — 
On heaven I call to be witness 

The past if for aught I forsake ! 

My love I can never forsake ! 
Oh! the beautiful past forever shall last 

If favored with her to awake ! 

Only this, if with her to awake ! 

But when and whence breaketh the morning 
To answer the pleading, "How long?" 

To drive back the Dark in its scorning 
Of Light, and the joy of its song? 1 

A-weary my soul is in waiting 

To gain the immortal creating — 

The wish the disrobed are relating — 
The spirits who cry out, "How long?" 
As if troublous bar to give tongue — 

Some lost note of earth who fain would give birth- 
Without us not perfect their song — 
How alike, the same wail in our song! 

Lo! manifest services rendered. 

In guidance the future to scan — 
So wise in the way they are tendered — 

So close to the spirit of man — 
How sacred are those as the olden. 
Whate'er has been shown or withhoiden, 
If only a glimpse of the golden 

They give unto us as they can — 

The limning that flashes a plan — 
The streamlets a-quiver to join the great river 

That sang since the a^es began 
As through the mist-valleys they ran ! 



52 



JUNE. 

What takes places in June? Come hither, 
Walk with Nature for a space ; 

While the early flowers may wither, 
Other gems bedeck her face. 

Fuller, richer is the tinting, 

Warmer skies the earth imprinting 
With imperial grace ! 

Song-birds sing as at their coming, 

Still with thrilling song; 
And the honey-bee seems humming, 

"Glad the day grows long." 
Man keeps pace with all around him ; 
Wealth of earth and joys surround him, 

And his soul grows strong. 

Nature, ever wisely, kindly, 

Cherishes her own so dear ; 
And the seasons cannot blindly 

In revolt appear ; 
June, how lovely and befitting; 
Harmonies transcendent knitting — 

Blessing all the year ! 

Man must toil to earn a living, 

Still respond to Duty's call, 
And the summer-season's giving 

He requires to crown it all. 
All the weary part beguiling, 
Lo ! this handmaid on him smiling 

Eases all his thrall ! 

53 



Heyday of our lives, to see it 
We must watch its prime ; 

Reach the stage where we can be it, 
Like the summer-time; 

Quaff the nectar it presents us — 

See a future that contents us, 
Higher, more sublime! 



A JUNE CYCLONE FOLLOWING. 

Clouds and shrouds and wild disaster, 

Seen amidst electric glare — 
Proof the elements are master, 

Crushing man's work everywhere! 
June is shorn of half its goodness; 

Hark ! her songs are mourner's wail ! 
Death stalks forth in frowning rudeness, 

Shrieking 'midst the sweeping gale ! 

Follows flood and roaring rivers. 

Wasting with a havoc stern; 
And the strong foundation quivers, 

Whence his weakness man may learn. 
Man, tho' brave in all his doing, 

Ne'er finds safety here below ; 
All he does may meet with ruin, 

Earth's best joys to end in woe ! 



54 



LESSONS FROM FLOWERS. 

We think of the flowers as companions 

Whenever we look upon them ; 
They often remind us of friendships 

Which sparkle on life like a gem; 
We choose some to rest on our bosom, 

The bridal with some we adorn, 
And some to the graves of our kindred, 

In hope, tho' in sorrow, are borne. 

Amidst them we gather new lessons : 

One blushes — yet rich is the rose ; 
And another would seem as if shaded 

With moonlight, so pallid it grows; 
And some are half hid in the grasses — 

The timid violets so near; 
But the modest as well as the gayest 

With something their own should endear. 

And all breathe so tender a spirit, 

Their incense so free to impart, 
So clothed are in heaven's own beauty, 

Beyond all the glory of art, 
That whether in garden or wildwood, 

In- garb of the lily or rose, 
From each we may learn the rare graces 

Kind Nature so richly bestows. 

Sweet flowers, they remind us of virtues 

That vary in multitude form, 
That smile while the world seems a desert, 

That cheer in adversity's storm. 
Some wave over broad fields their banners 

To beautify earth as their own ; 
And some, tho' but half-tones and fleckings, 

Are pleasing, tho' almost unknown. 



55 



The festooning vine on the trellis, 

It spreads o'er the wood in decay — 
The mouldering structure with blossoms 

Is clothed in the richest array. 
Of that which we need it reminds us — 

What mercy in kindness makes ours — 
By which the True Vine may entwine us, 

Whence grows Immortality's flowers. 



AUTUMN. 



Tis the gray autumn, and the woods grow bare 

Like to the head of age in its decay; 

The chilling winds are sweeping o'er the ground, 

With frequent hoar frosts; cold in garnishment; 

While substituting glare for glory fled — 

The summer glory of the flaunting flowers, 

Earth's garb of green, the wondrous raiment wrought 

By unseen hands on Nature's active loom, 

Of pliant textiles, beauteous throughout! 

More varied these than tartans of the clans 

Of Scotland ; in sheen far, far exceeding 

Silken robes, in gorgeousness the damasks 

Of the East; joyous, how joyous to behold! 

The meantime, smirched and ruined, strewn around, 

Lie bloom and beauty 'neath the feller's hand : 

Autumn, like Death, spares not, disrobing all, 

Leaving in wreckage drear, chaotic gaps 

Which naught can change but first creative power. 

Season for sober thought ; we love to dwell 
On those philosophies that teach us truth, 
That life unveil, and bid us penetrate 

56 



The depths of wisdom witnessed everywhere ; 

From subtle germ, the bud, the scented bloom, 

The fruitage in maturity and use 

Are gifts of God to man — man's heritage 

In bestowment! Their transient nature 

May help to draw us closer to Himself, 

Like one who shows a pretty toy to draw 

A child, then takes the hand, removing 

Soon the toy; or, teaching our dependence, show 

The alchemy of Nature, as it makes 

Or unmakes — the thought to us of daily bread ; 

The serving season ; providences plain ; 

And adaptations, tho' of temporal kind, 

Foreshadowing the great universal 

Adaptation of two beings so remote 

As God and man, brought near and intertwined 

'Neath one high Law that earth and heaven evolves. 



DECORATION ODE. 

How Few! 

The mighty host, the fighting boys, the men who filled 
our ranks 
Amidst the carnage and the crime that would us 
all undo, 
Where are they now, those centres strong, and those 
unflinching flanks? 
Of all that army few are left — how sad to think, 
how few ! 

How few we meet, old comrades dear, for Freedom's 
cause who stood, 
Who 'neath our standard bravely marched e'en to 
the cannon's mouth ; 



57 



Of those who for the Union fought and sealed it with 
their blood, 
Until Old Glory floated free o'er the mistaken 
South. 

The morning of their manhood was glorious to be- 
hold— 
Their countenance determined, the warrior-flush it 
wore; 
Their step was firm, their tread was sure, their spirit 
strong and bold 
In facing leaden storms that oft their ranks in frag- 
ments tore. 

What sacrifices then of lives upon the gory field, 
So far away from anxious friends whom they had 
left in tears ! 
What horrors in the prison-pens where they had 
scorned to yield 
To pledges asked by Treason, with their shame of 
after years! 

How few were they who'd compromise, tho' tortured 
to the verge 
Of that which seems incredible men could at all 
endure, 
Where Reason scarce could hold its own 'neath Hun- 
ger's wasting scourge, 
With every weak'ning influence to challenge and 
allure ! 

And 'neath that strain they fewer grew until released 
at length ; 
The battle and the prison-grime was all the badge 
they wore — 
Their country's gratulations might revive their lag- 
ging strength, 
But from the mouth of hell all felt they had come 
back once more. 

58 



How few of those are with us now — and fewer every 
year, 
They still must march with feeble step to where 
their comrades lay; 
But honor to the noble dead, we decorate each bier, 
And on their graves strew tenderly the freshest 
flowers of May! 



THE BROODING SPIRIT. 

Spirit creative, of primordial time, 

Rejuvenating Cosmic-ages, long, 
Through eons of the active early prime 

That reared large Systems on foundations strong: 

Dost thou still work? Thou had'st thy day of rest — 
Thou did'st not cease while aught in menace reeled ; 

Till every atom weighed was at its best, 

And heaven's full train, well-poised, far-flashing, 
wheeled. 

Thou did'st not cease till ocean-beds were laid, 

And mountain-heights towered over depths pro- 
found ; 

Till tenantries of life had been displayed 
On land, sea, air — prolific to abound. 

Till Universal Law was in control 

And touched the secrets of mysterious life ; 

Till over all was placed the god-like soul 
And harmony o'ercame each form of strife. 

Joy we in thee? Thy standard reared — unfurled? 
Thy bannered sheen repellent of the Night? 

59 



Look we to thee ? Lo ! yet a darksome world 

Cries, "Speak as wont once more, 'Let there be 

light.- " 

O, speak to caverns deep of human wrong ! 

To Orgies unabashed of ghastly mood ! 
Speak to the Cruelties, assailant, strong, 

To earth's dark Charnel-house, and fields of blood! 

Speak for the Civic-hosts in bondage prone ! 

To Usurpation in its scorn of right ! 
Speak to the Lords of earth upon the throne ! 

Speak as thou would'st restore the blind to sight! 

And dost thou speak in burden of thy power? 

And shall the uttered word return thee void? 
Judged by impatience of the human hour, 

Shall it with lapsing-years but be destroyed? 

Yea ! if all fiery law — convulsive shocks ; 

Man's fear betrayed as in the Seer of seers ; 
Yea ! if but law engraven on the rocks, 

Which Science searches — and presumes or fears! 

O Spirit ! and the consciousness of man, 
Speak with the mastery of Soul with soul ! 

Speak to the life here measured to a span — 
Speak for the years eternally that roll ! 

Still moans the troubled and imprisoned sea ; 

Still groans the whole creation as in pain ; 
Still longs the Human for what is to be ; 

Still broods the Spirit to create again. 

60 



GOING FROM THE OLD HOME. 

We take their parting hand and wave a faint good-bye, 

And off they speed to make their home beneath a dis- 
tant sky. 

Few are the words we care to speak or would in lan- 
guage frame, 

To picture life's perspective, which we the future 
name. 

Our social natures thrill and glow o'er home joys of 

the past, 
The sunny paths which we have walked with not a 

cloud o'ercast; 
The flowers that sprung, which memory's vase shall 

ever rich adorn ; 
That brought us light and happiness like radiant rays 

of morn. 

But days like those are transient, with shadows on our 

way, 
Or strains of sweetest music that pass in magic play; 
For tho' the bonds are strong, the individual more, 
Must all he is assert in life and mark his single score. 

And so the parent and the child, the friend who walks 

with friend, 
Ere long must come unto the point companionship to 

end; 
Half glad, half sad, the hands are locked, betokening 

the heart, 
With that strange feeling that must fall on those who 

know they part. 

So all that we can say or do at such a time as this 
Is to express the earnest hope our friends may share 
the bliss 

61 



Heaven has in store for those who walk amidst the 

beauteous flowers 

That e'er attend devoted lives — as rightful aims are 

ours. » 

That purposes may large expand to broaden every 

day, 
To those who quit the narrower bound, who higher 

laws obey; 
That usefulness at any cost with sacrifices meet, 
May be the pole star of their lives, with virtue e'er 

replete. 

So while we part on lower planes, our spirits take the 

scope 
Of that wherein we may behold the rainbow tints of 

hope 
O'er-arching all our lives, with promises unchanged, 
And comfort take, altho' we part, our hearts are not 

estranged. 



THE UNTRIED YEAR. 

Lo ! who is this soft tapping at our door, 

Asking admission — fain would be our guest, 

And bear us company; perchance be more? 

Bright beams his eye, gem-spangled is his crest, 

And quick his finger-touch, ticking his plea 

Here to abide ; what shall his service be ? 

Our wondrous guest we watch with searching gaze, 
Such as we strangers give, to us unknown ; 

His birth-star, for a revelation of the days 
To come we note ; and trace it up and down 

'Twixt hopes and fears — our hopes at times so frail, 

Trembling like gossamers before the gale ! 

62 



What he shall be to us, or we to him, 

Wakes anxious inquiry ; and why not so ? 

A wall of darkness is before us. Dim, 
Dim is our fitful light where'er we go: 

We enter the unknown each step we take, 

And fear, as oft we may, mistakes to make. 

Whilst ours a heritage of trust, instead 

Of absolution from all worldly care, 
We hold no pattern by which to be led 

In fullest form, can shape our character ; 
Each, must adapting every form of change, 
Tread a new path — the individual range. 

Yet, we rejoice, tho' not unmixed with awe; 

If thus made weak, meanwhile it makes us strong; 
We dig new wells (tho' from the old we draw), 

And drink fresh waters ; they to us belong ; 
And fuller trust, tho' human 'tis to fear, 
Comes with the advent of each ushered year. 

For this we know, we never are alone ; 

In thousand forms earth's agencies we trace; 
The twelve apostles of the year preach on 

A gospel which proclaims each season's grace; 
We smell the incense" in aromas sweet, 
Tho' it may spring from crushed flowers at our feet. 

We catch new glories from the march of Time, 
By law conserved in order as of old ; 

The temp'ral only fails ; the more sublime 
Ever shall prove imperishable gold. 

This is our stay should untried worlds appear, 

Hence welcome, so assured, the untried year. 

63 



SIR SNOW AND SIR WIND. 

Sir Snow, we have named you the "beautiful," 

With garments in comeliness spread; 
Presuming you came to be dutiful, 

With a face wherein comfort we read ; 
So wheels we resigned for the sled, 

And the jingle of bells had a cheer; 
And "Blessings upon you," we said, 

So joyous the time of the year! 

Sir Wind something else began muttering, 

With a sniff all his own in his song; 
With a snort of his strength in the uttering, 

He gave us full proof and ere long ; 
Full-breasted his steeds, and their breath, 

Thin frozen, kept filling the air — 
He swept a tornado of death 

To all that is lovely and fair. 

Pile up ! Pile it high ! It was furious 
How he rifted and lifted the snow! 

The wind-rows he made they were curious, 
Just placed where we all wished to go. 

From all quarters he veered and amain, 
And the merciless ravage we found 

Was to fill up the highways, 'tis plain- 
To make them his chief dumping-ground. 

Country roads, railway lines— no respecter 

Of persons, or traffic, or haste, 
Was made by this whirling director — 

Nor reckoning made he of waste. 
Perhaps he a riddle presents — 

A hint to mankind on the sly — 
How the world oft its progress prevents 

When "Block up the highways," the cry. 

64 



Sir Wind, tho' not ceremonious, 

Why not blow this truth in the ear : 
"Why should the world be inharmonious 

In joining its pathways to clear?" 
O, give us a blast of the good 

When evil obstructs and the wrong; 
Blow hard — we shall ne'er think it rude — 

On such service thou can't be too strong. 



AIR-SHIP SAILING. 

(Expectancy.) 

We start like a bird whose pinions are stirred 

By instinct — by power of motion ; 
We fearlessly sail in face of the gale, 

And steer like a ship on the ocean. 

Unique the surprise to peer from the skies 
On earth, with its secrets unveiling; 

Enriching the dream of a lordship supreme, 
Or like an angelic regaling! 

How thrilling to skim past ocean's broad rim, 
O'er plains, over highest of mountains ; 

To joy in the Day with its splendor and sway, 
And quaff at ethereal fountains ! 

To glint with the sheen where the iris is seen, 
And read in fresh beauty its promise — 

Evanescent, yet sure, 'twill ever endure, 
'Tis only the shadow flees from us. 

While neath us the storm raves fierce to deform, 
Terrific in cloud-burst and thunder, 

The harbors of space safe-shelter give place, 
Whatever commotion lies under. 



65 



p 



To encircle the Pole with adventurous soul — 

The brilliant tract of auroras — 
On flambeaus of light we bear in our flight, 

And chase their ineffable glories. 

How near to the gods ! Mayhap their abodes ! 

With lure of our kindred above us ! 
How joyous the spell on our spirits to dwell, 

There are Powers abroad that must love us ! 

Each cycle of change more effulgent in range, 
Begemmed and new-clad in appearing, 

With favors let down aspirations to crown, 
Must lead to a higher revering. 

Yet systems dissolve as the ages revolve, 
And nought but the transient is tasted, 

Till worlds shall lift sail to face the last gale, 
And mount where the shadows are wasted. 



HALTING. 



'Twixt two fires, between two lovers — 

Can I to both be true? 
Life is a leaf between two covers, 

Hiding each page from view. 

What shall I render the flame of passion, 

Drinking the morning dew? 
What to the glitter and gild of fashion, 

Pressing so hard to woo? 

These as rivals seeking possession 

Constant attentions renew; 
Suppliants craving my confession — 

Equally earnest, too. 



66 



Flames of desire not always lasting — 

Dread of my soul lies there! 
Pleasures, the richest, die with the tasting- 

What if I thus should fare? 

Sunshine is here — the cloud still hovers — 

Both my pathway pursue; 
How can I choose 'twixt my two lovers, 

With either a chance to rue? 



OUR LIGHTED CITY. 
(First Electric Lighting of Cass City.) 

What a city this is — a city of light, 

As nightfall is spreading its gloom! 
What a brilliant array make our sentinels bright 
As they leap into place, as they flash on the sight, 

And say to the darkness, "Make room!" 

How sparkles each jet like a diamond pure, 

Or gem of the starry sky ! 
And twinkles with some of that merriment, sure, 
That seems in its purity ever secure, 

Whate'er it beholds with its eye ! 

The wan moon looks down on her rivals now, 

And waxes and wanes as of yore ; 
But they laugh at her sullen and dreamy brow, 
At her curvature-spine and back-action bow; 

Cass City shall need her no more. 

The Great Bear peers out with his watchful eyes, 

Stalks forth from his secret place ; 
He looks to the Pole, as he sees with surprise 
New lights — "New lights, what are they," he cries. 

"Now flashing so far into space?" 

6 7 



And Taurus, too, lowers his head as in ire — 

He looks as if Spain were here ! 
Come, come, friendly stars, there's naught that is dire, 
In all that ye see of celestial fire 

That is lighting a sister sphere ! 

And tho' the stars fade, our planet moves on ; 

'Tis the home of a wondrous race ; 
In darkness once plunged, to the light it has won, 
And ever we find something new to be done, 

The earth and the heavens to grace. 

But lo ! as our city shines forth as the light, 

Ye lovers of darkness beware! 
Ye now are bereft of your covert, the night ; 
May evil take wings to speed in its flight, 

For shelter it here cannot share ! 

Rise higher, grow better, our great, great world, 

Within, as without, grow bright! 
Let the banner of Light stream far as unfurled, 
And Darkness be smitten, and from us be hurled, 

And earth be a city of light ! 



THE DIVINE RIGHT OF MAN. 

(Written during the coal famine of the fall of 1902.) 
Eons ago the good Lord thought it wise 

To make this planet one vast treasure store ; 
Weighting the golden influence of the skies — 

All elements of earth with wealth, 'midst score 
Of doing and undoing. When complete 

It stood before Him well prepared for life — 
The life of Man — like His, 'twas all replete — 

Requiring toil, but eschewing cruel strife. 

68 



Earth for man made ! And he a steward true, 

Oft tutored by Adversity, peers out 
To fuller search. His art all things subdue; 

He quiets fear, he overmasters doubt. 
Uncharted lands, the void of dismal seas 

He opens up. He maps the world. He rears 
Great monuments, enduring witnesses 
- Of his high mission through the crowning years. 

The chaplet of his fame upon his brow 

He wears with pride. His diligence, a guerdon 
mete, 
Invokes our thanks. All-changing times allow 

Fresh opportunities progress to repeat. 
He Industry and Science yokes. What bars 

Can that impede where Genius wakes? 
The clods of earth, the rays of distant stars, 

Pay tribute to what Toil thro' Science makes. 

But 'midst this glory — prestige of the race — 

A cry! Does Ethical Advancement lead 
Life's several actors to that Lordly Place 

Where none oppress — where man to man, indeed, 
A brother proves? Where Labor's recompense 

Is just, proportionate, as men would judge 
A cause not theirs ; without that false defense 

Wherein self-interest may the right begrudge? 

The skies are ominous ! There hangs a scowl 
Of trouble o'er our fair west world ! All hearts 

Are beating hard ! Shall men play fair or foul 

Where 'twas our boast that Right the tyrant 
thwarts ? 

6 9 



Should thwart! To toilers in the mines, the wage 
Shall it be but small pittance of the gain 

That swells the purse of those who Toil engage — 
Like Cuba crushed beneath the heel of Spain? 

Or, as with Egypt toward the Hebrew herd 

It sought to crush by force of lordly power 
Man's Right contemned? Heaven has our Nation 
stirred 

Indignant. 'Tis the question of the hour ; 
How long can we afford this menaced thrall 

That locks the stores the good Lord laid away 
Eons ago to meet the world's high call — 

For Man, progressive Man, as of this day ? 

Shall wheels of Industry now cease to turn? 

Shall they who toil dread hunger undergo? 
Must lives go out as fires shall cease to burn, 

'Midst biting frosts and winter's chilling snow? 
Picture the suffering! Everywhere there rings 

The cry for coal ! The air will soon be rent ; 
Ev'n now electric Fury spreads its wings — 

Alas the evil! Who shall this prevent? 

Our noble President* stands in the breach, 

The poor man's friend, and yet he's no man's foe ; 
By amity, by justice he would reach 

The cause that wraps us in a common woe. 
His policy is safe — it can't do wrong; 

Man's Right Divine must prove the golden rule ; 
'Tis pleading now — it may command ere long. 

If 'tis not heeded ere the cup be full. 



President Roosevelt. 

70 



LETTERS FROM THE DEAD. 

A young' man who had gone as a teacher from 
Michigan died in the Philippine Islands. The news 
was flashed by wire across the sea and continent im- 
mediately. His letters written before his decease- 
would take weeks in transit, in the meantime, before 
reaching his friends. Week by week for a number of 
w r eeks they came to them. How strangely sad all this 
must have been, knowing that he had passed from 
them forever ! 

The speedy death-news as on lightning wings came. 
That forever was quenched the dear mortal flame : 
And how sad to his friends was the word that he died 
In a far distant land, and not one by his side 
Of the dear ones he left, and who loved him so well — 
That he died, this was all the winged message could 

tell. 
But the letters he wrote in the Philippine Isles 
With the cheer of his heart and the grace of his smiles. 
Week by week, by the post, to the friends still" arrive. 
And speak to them just as if he were alive. 

Oh ! those letters, how strange their burden seems now, 
With the thought of Death's dew upon his cold brow ; 
With the thought of the still heart — the spirit as fled, 
And he evermore to be named with the dead ! 

They were written, and weeks they must travel to rind 
The friends whom he wished of his love to remind : 
And he in the interval ceases — and so 
They can only remind of his burden of woe. 

To one they still come who was dear to his heart. 
Who hoped, as he hoped, that not long they should 
part. 



7 1 



Their affection was pledged ere he crossed the wide 

sea, 
That now seems as wide as eternity ; 
Their affection was pledged while hope as a star 
Shed a radiance which distance or time could not mar : 
But Death! Oh! the shadow of Death when it falls 
Who can measure the grief that the living appalls, 
With the void of the heart and that chaos of mind 
Which confuses the world and leaves life undefined? 
And his letters still come, but no less is the pain, 
For the thought must abide : he shall ne'er come again. 

They shall cease, as he ceased, but this voice from the 

dead 
Shall it prove a loved call in his footsteps to tread? 
To work for the good of mankind without fear, 
Tho' the shadow of death in the pathway appear? 
If there's no other balm for the wounds of the heart, 
Then his life and his death may this lesson impart. 



THE FACES WE SHALL SEE NO MORE. 

How plainly they were photographed 

Upon our minds, the friends we knew ! 
How pleasantly they talked and laughed, 

And we rejoiced to think them true! 
All had a greeting of their own, 

Some plain and some could higher soar ; 
To us each was distinctly known, 

The faces we shall see no more. 

The broad world is by far too wide 

For intimacies held so dear; 
But in our little world we pride, 

So unaffected, so sincere ! 
Our school-day dreams come back again, 



72 



The rallying play-ground trodden o'er, 
And youth's hilarity so plain 
On faces we shall see no more. 

The friendships of those early years 

Are tender as we them recall ; 
Life has its trials and its tears 

Pint joyous days there are for all. 
There is no darkening cloud so dense, 

As to obscure this treasured store. 
Or, mar fond memory's recompense 

Of faces we shall see no more. 

The circle drawn, the habits formed 

Too pleasant seemed a while for change ; 
But tho' not oft beset or stormed 

They laid within mutation's range — 
And some have passed beyond life's bourn, 

Companions of our days of yore — 
How many!— They shall not return; 

Their faces we shall see no more.' 

The ranks are thinning year by year ; 

Here sinks a friend— there pales a face [ 
The death-knell rings upon our ear, 

A rhythmic sob therein we trace! 
Its voice is solemn and profound, — 

Whate'er we cherish or adore— 
Change and mortality abound — 

These faces we shall see no more. 

When we eliminate the faults, 

As charity the right bestows. 
There are not many in the vaults 

Of whom we wish to think as foes. 
For we should pity more than blame 

Whate'er the world is at the core. 



73 



Nor judge in harshness what became 
Of those whose face we see no more. 

Meanwhile, we linger with delight 

On virtues that unfading shine; 
On those whose spirit beamed aright 

With influences so divine ! 
And dark this world to us would be, 

And drear on-coming floods would roar, 
But for heaven's light, we yet can see 

On faces we now see no more. 



SHAPED AS THE CLAY. 

(A poem of peculiar rhyming.) 
Eagerly seeking world-treasures to weigh ; 
Meagrely drawing a pittance each day. 
Scanning rich prizes tho' distant in view, 
Planning to seize on the seemingly true ; 
Glad'ning prospects lead on, ever on, 
Sad'ning oft with the good never won. 
Living, alternate, 'neath sunshine and cloud. 
Giving us glory-wreaths — weaving a shroud — 
Portal and path, what a feverish change! 
Mortal, immortal, Life's prospects how strange ! 

Purely to cherish the thing that is right, 
Surely the beautiful leads to the light ; 
Only the rose-blush our passion adorns. 
Lonely we smart in embracing the thorns ; 
Courses bright suns in a fiery flame? 
Forces assail us we never can tame. 
Shake us, distress us, or sully in frown, 
Break us, dismiss us, or trample us down ; 
Utter our protest, or strive as we may — 
Potter we are not — we're shaped as the clay. 



74 



Story of Life tho' a thousand times told. 
Glory alluring deceives as of old; 
Crosses still complicate life — and anew 
Losses and trials like sleuth-hounds pursue. 
Ever 'midst cooings, soft-whispering near, 
Never a day but discloses a fear ; 
Falter we would not, but often we must ; 
Alter we dare not the soul of our trust, — 
Heaven turns us to mould — all growth to decay 
Even spirit itself is shaped as the clay! 



THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

("Fellow citizens! The ark of your covenant is the 
Declaration of Independence, your Mount Ebal is 
the Confederacy of State Sovereignties, and your 
Mount Gerizim is the Constitution of the United 
States. In that scene of tremendous and awful sol- 
emnity, narrated in the Holy Scriptures, there is not 
a curse pronounced upon the people upon Mount 
Ebal, not a blessing promised them upon Mount Geri- 
zim, which your posterity may not suffer or enjoy 
from your and their adherence to, or departure from, 
the principles of the Declaration of Independence, 
practically interwoven in the Constitution of the Unit- 
ed States." — John Quincy Adams.) 

Our Nation's history, how grand ! 

What inspiration 'round it gathers! 
How proud and free the children stand 

Where once stood their down-trodden fathers ! 
Where once men grimly smiled — and thought 

Upon their country — their descendants — 
The Declaration signed, which brought 

To them and us our Independence! 



75 



They quenched the fire and smote the flood; 

They formulated laws and manners ; 
They bled, and stained their arms with blood, 

And bore to victory their banners ; 
In council hall, or battle-field, 

One spirit ever in attendance : 
To do and dare — and never yield 

'Till they secured their independence. 

Tho' faintly seen and dimly known 

All that is seen and known at present, 
No heroes can surpass our own 

In bravery, in toil incessant ; 
The lion-hearted and the brave 

On land, or 'neath the war-ship's pendants, 
They in the battle-shock did save 

The Nation, and our independence. 

Shall we prove worthy of such sires — 

Their influence heroic, ample? 
Perpetuate their altar-fires, 

And follow, led by their example? 
Shall we like loyalty bequeath 

As they to us to our descendants? 
Undaunted by the dread of death 

The cause maintain of Independence? 

If so, 'twas not in vain they rose 

And reared aloft the fearless eagle, 
And flashed defiance on their foes 

And made the Nation's manhood regal ; 
And wove the band that made us strong, 

United as the bold defendants 
Of rights, such as to men belong — 

Our glory and our Independence ! 



7 6 



WASHINGTON. 

He sleeps beneath his native sod ; 

Fit burial place for one so true, 
Who grew in favor with his God 

As he with man in favor grew,— 
Who from his proud achievements drew 

Esteem, that hath his day outgrown, 
As Justice weighs the honor due 

To those who serve her cause alone. 

'Twas his to look thro' days to come, 

(The father of our country he), 
And build for us the ideal home— 

For us and millions yet to be ; — 
The home where unmolested, free. 

The heaven-born attributes of mind 
Might touch the springs of destiny, 

Unlimited and unconfined. 

Those influences, more and more 

Our broader interests involve; 
Our charter spreads from shore to shore. 

And governmental problems solve; — 
Magnanimous was the resolve, 

A crown, a sceptre to disdain ; 
That while the wheels of Time revolve 

The People in their choice should reign. 

Ye mountains lift your heads on high— 
Ye sentinels of towering height ! 

And flash it far along the sky 

Ye golden beams of radiant light ! 

And wave ye forests with delight ; 
And laughing rivers greet the sea ; 

And homes of millions now in sight- 
Proclaim it all— that we are free ! 



77 



And Nature's monumental domes 

Through every age shall witness bear; 

And fruitful plains and honored homes 
Thus lasting happiness declare — 

Which all enjoy and all may share 
According to the golden plan 

That Law is but a means to care 

For all the interests of man ! 

And sacred ever be the sod 

Where mouldering his ashes lie 
W r ho served his country and his God 

With honest heart and watchful eye : 
Who heroes led to do or die; 

With patriots shared whate'er was won; 
And carved a name none can outvie — 

The honored name of Washington. 



EXPATRIATION. 



Aliens in spirit, lax wanderers ye ! 
Who would as countrymen claim you to be? 
Transients while here and ready to flee — 
Flotson and jetson of the wide sea: 
Country or nation, what are ye to them? 
Nothing to aid, to approve or condemn — 
Nothing to give to society's claim — 
Nothing to build as a permanent stay, 
Ye forage a while — and then 'tis away ! 

Constellate-clusters see we in stars — 

One may be Saturn's, one may be Mars' ; 

Force has its order, attraction its bars ; 

Scheduled, on time run the heavenly cars: — 

In the far spaces of ethery seas, 

Derelicts never there drift as they please; 

78 



Comets swing in and swing out at their ease; 
( )rbits of equipoise ever in sway, — 
Never lax nebular vagrants at play! 

Birds have their seasons to mark and return, 
Instincts, how salient for flight or sojourn! 
Trustful, as flocks, what endearments they learn ; 
Watchful, how close o'er their offspring they yearn 
Chirping and cooing and pairing as mates ; 
Building their nests and close-guarding estates; 
Eyeing the leaves with significant dates , 
Round the loved domicile, singing, they stay 
Till the chill blast pipes, "Wing now away!" 

Country and home, how dear to the true ; 
Ever the spirit of worth to imbue — 
Ever the upward trend to pursue- 
Ever up-building with services due: 
Herein is fixity given to Right — 
Giving society substance and might — 
Lifting the banner of Truth to the height ! — 
Why not expatriate others, we say, 
Helping us not, undeserving, away? 



WHO AM I 



My life is the pulse of a vibrating jar— 
The sway of a magnate — the lilt of a star — 

The dream of a wonder. I waken in thunder, 
Then sleep in the cloud-folds floating afar. 

My secrets to others can never be known; 

While others would tell me of theirs — and alone; 

In thrills of their gladness, their burden of sadness, 
I throb in each throb — their tears are their own. 



79 



I'm lofty in spirit tho' lowly in soul ; 
I serve, but remain still as free of control ; 
I furnish no splendor in all that I tender, 
Tho' greetings I render from pole unto pole. 

Who am I ? or what is the life that I lead? 
Ever puzzles the world — 'tis a puzzle indeed ; 

In proof of this wonder should earth drop asunder 
To ultimate space the news I would speed. 



CHIPS FROM SOLOMON'S BASKET. 

My son, be thou wise, for 'tis never quite safe 

Thou idly should'st handle edge-tools that are keen; 

And thou, in transition from soft-bud to leaf, 
I'd caution to cherish no surplus of green. 

Those nodules well placed on each side of thy head, 
With hollow arrangements receptive of sound, 

Just hold to their use — 'twill bring wisdom, instead 
Of thinking thy birth wrought a sage in compound. 

Thou art here — and thy consequence much will 
depend. 

If midst other atoms thou fit in thy place; 
Thou'lt find a beginning, a middle, an end, 

In nearly all things if thou history trace. 

My son do not try the reversal of things 

If rashly 'gainst mountains it leads thee to butt; 

There's a highway, a right way, marked even for 
kings, 
Yet think not to find it worn down to a rut. 

Begin life aright — howe'er humble it be, 
A service well rendered entitles to more ; 

80 



How profitless, vain, ever proveth the fee 

Where final accounting the balance must score ! 

Live well — and have conscience thy favors attest: 
The bee sups his honey, his hum it is clear ; 

The diligent ever should fare of the best, 

Tho' robber-moths, too, will for pillage appear. 

Nor sluggish e'er be — so much thou may'st miss 
Nor hasty — why should thou in aught overdo? 

The flash-incubator too hot in the kiss, _ 
As well as by chill may hold ruin in view. 

Thyself, I admonish, most stubborn of all, 
Thyself, in thy citadel, rocky and hard. 

Be sure and o'ercome, it is first in the call 
As wisdom would safely point out thy reward. 



KATY DID. 



Katy, whither shall we wander? 

Sweet is summer's breath at play 
Scent of rose and brook's meander 

All invite us forth today; 
And a voice from covert hid 
Cheers us with what Katy did. 

Tenderly, around, above us, 

The impenetrable blue 
Bends and bows as if to love us — 

Truly bowing unto you ; 
Charms of Nature lure and lead — 
Shall they voice what Katy did? 

Little maiden, shy and cunning, 
Fearful of the tell-tale fare, 

8l 



Seek we a retreat and shunning 
Earth and sky's intrusive glare, 
We may feast on love, nor heed 
Aught that's said — that Katy did? 

Katy mine ! how bright as heaven 
Seems the sunshine on our way ! 

Earth and sky may be forgiven 

If they brighten where we stray — 

And that voice, when pledged indeed, 

Sounding out — what Katy did ! 



THE WHITE ROBIN'S RETURN.* 

Absent so long, 

Bird of our song. 
The loss of white robin we had to deplore ; 

Daily at first 

The vision would burst. 

Fair in its flitting, 

Restful in sitting. 

Chirping its greeting. 
Then it was gone, and we feared evermore. 



;=> 



Sudden and wise, 
To our surprise. 
There on our wood-pile 'tis perched as of yore; 
Plumage so white — 
White in despite 



:;: The white robin appeared near our dwelling April 
L2, 1907. For a number of weeks prior to the late fall 
it had disappeared ; then, as if to render a farewell, it 
flitted about our home a number of days. The poem 
was composed at this return. 

82 



Days of its matching, 
Brooding and hatching. 
Nest-care and watching. 
Plumed as contented its season's work <>Vr 



Now 'tis the word 

Heard from this bird. 
As we interpret its action and lore; 

"Soon, and for long, 

Flight is my song; 

South lands are fitter, 

North winds are bitter, 

Birds with a twitter 
Speeding must flee until winter is o'er." 

Dear bird, again 
Shall thy refrain 
"Gladden once more when the winter is o'er? 
Comes with the spring 
Flash of white wing, 
Telling us surely, 
Guarded securely, 
Instincts are purely 
Part of that providence all should adore ? 

This, or to learn 
More to discern, 
Flight meaneth safety with life's summer o'er 
Other white wings, 
^ Other glad springs, 
- Come they to meet us, 
Wistfully greet us. 
Wrap and complete us, 
Till their full meaning our lost shall restore? 



83 



BOB-O-LINK. 

Lo ! songster of a happy song, 

Thy cheering note we love to hear ! 

From far we love thy warble strong, 
Or on thy perch so trustful near ! 

Robert of Lincoln! what a name! 

Or Bob-o-Link, 'tis just the same! 

Robert of Lincoln! Bob-o-Link! 

May we not of thy spirit drink? 

Here one sits by the purling brook; 

Tis eventide, his perch is low; 
While other birds have us forsook, 

He carols to the sunset glow : 
Robert of Lincoln is my name, 
Or Bob-o-Link, 'tis just the same. 
A maiden near cries, "Bob-o-Link, 
Your bright eye seems at me to wink !" 

AW watch him ; 'tis no common bird ; 

His black vest shows some native pride 
He wears light epaulettes ; when stirred 

They gaily flash from side to side: 
Robert of Lincoln, trill thy name ; 
Or Bob-o-Link, 'tis just the same! 
Yes, Bob-o-Link! Yes, Bob-o-Link! 
It makes us of our loved ones think ! 

We love the emblems that have worth, 
Not titles bearing empty show — 

The birds and men who dwell on earth 
Whose presence gladness can bestow ; 

We love them under any name — 

Plain and familiar, just the same; 

Yes, Bob-o-Link, with friendship's link. 

We'd ever of this spirit drink ! 

8 4 



The human voice has many a jar, 
Its discords we would gladly shun ; 

The false note oft sounds out afar — 
By it what ills are ever done : 

But, warbler true, whate'er thy name, 

Thy soulful strain is still the same ; 

'Tis friendship's link; why should it shrink? 

Near it our spirits may not sink ! 



THE FARMER. 



Who toils long hours and onward plods, 
Day in and out, the whole year through 

Reverses with the plow the sods ; 

Harrows the mould and breaks the clods 

Brings order out of ends and odds, 

Teaching the earth what it should do? 

The farmer. 

Who courts the Spring and feels the zest 

Of bright'ning days that rise to view. 
Nor asks that he at all shall rest, 
With conscious manhood's aim possest. 
Till fields and gardens smile so blest. 
As if they well their mission knew? 

The farmer. 

When harvest days draw near apace. 

Who nerves himself the work to do ; 
To feed the millions of his race 
Dependent on this human grace, 
The brow of sweat, the sun-burned face- 
Trie garnering of the grain that grew ? 

The farme". 



85 



And dost thou, robed in raiment fine, 

Pass by in hauteur one so true, 
Nor think'st what he's to thee and thine 
Who live in ease, in fashion shine, 
Counting thy class almost divine, 

While he must toil 'neath sun and dew ? 

The farmer. 

Nor think'st at all by whom thou'rt fed — 

Who from thy door the wolf keeps, too- 
Thou'rt a dependent — not the head — 
What is bare wealth ? It is not bread— 
'Twould be but husks if famine led. 
Then give the honor that is due 

The farmer. 

O, tiller of the soil, take heart! 

All false ambition still subdue; 
Tho' humble, thine the nobler part; 
And naught thy recompense can thwart, 
If to thy calling true thou art — 

To heaven and to thy fellows true — 

A farmer! 



THE FARMER'S WIFE. 

If Adam ever farmed at all. 

As we the truth are left to guess, 
His progress could have been but small, 
Whate'er his freedom was from thrall, 
While from his nature came the call, 
I need my bachelor home to bless 

A wife. 

And Eve was brought him, ruddy, young, 

A help-mate full of blood and vim ; 
The birds of paradise then sung 



86 



Their sweetest notes with warbling tongue, 
As on the swaying boughs they swung; 
And joyful was the song to him, 

A wife. 

Man's help-mate, rang both far and near; 

Earth nothing sweeter ever heard; 
It made the w r orld itself most dear; 
It filled the man with fullest cheer; 
It gave to life a meaning clear, 

As in the radiant light appeared 

The wife. 

Soon came a change, and to their cost, 

As both had made a sad mistake ; 
While much of happiness was lost 
In being from the garden thrust, 
A gleam of light their pathway crost — 
The restitution she would make — 

The wife. 

She, close companion by his side, 

Would share his toil, his trials share ; 

No vixen, taunting him in pride ; 

No flirt, his labor to deride ; 

No shrew, to stir the bitter tide, 
Or make companionship a snare — 

The wife. 

So ever thus she has been queen 
Who toils beside her loving mate ; 

While rural life is more serene, 

And less conventional, I ween, 

Than lives which upon bubbles lean, 
Fashion and style, which ne'er create 

The wife. 



87 



For tho' the potted plant may deck 

The home as an imprisoned sphere, 
Yet the rich rose without a fleck 
Must wear the pearl-drops round its neck 
Thro' which its charms resistless break — 
So to the farmer's heart his dear, 

True wife. 

And toiling — 'tis her lot to toil — 
She's taught the true athletic code ; 

Not selfish exercise the while", 

Whose aim is apathy to foil, 

But usefulness with sunny smile 

To bless the earth as man's abode — 

The wife. 

The farmer's wife — God bless her still ! 

What rich blood courses in her veins ! 
Her place on earth who else can fill? 
We need her spirit's power to thrill — 
Her aim, her character and will — 

Heaven's guiding pillar she remains — 

The wife. 



A PHILOSOPHIC HEX. 
(A scratch of poetry.) 

I cackle because I feel like it, 

The notion comes on in a minute ; 

'Tis always the same, from Shanghai to Game- 
The price of the egg is not in it. 

Some generous are in the feeding ; 

The motive appears in a minute ; 
I might starve or beg were it not for the egg, 

And the profit they think there is in it. 



88 



I cackle because I enjoy it — 

With a way that is honest to win it ; 

Mankind has a smack of the self-same attack, 
But oft a decoy may be in it. 

Should anyone cackle o'er wrong, 

I'll chuck you out something to pin it: 

Tis that which I lay should it ever decay 
With vengeance applied for a minute, 

But rather to work for reform, 

I'll give a fresh egg to begin it ; 
Whoe'er has a song with an odor too strong 

Don't listen to such for a minute. 



MATRIMONIAL KICKERS. 

'Twas just a month and half a day 

Since Bob and Ann were wed ; 
To them 'twas moonshine all the way, 

With honeymoon o'erhead. 
But honeymoons, like all the moons, 

Are sure to wane and flicker, 
And when at length the horn appears 

Some one will prove a kicker. 

Bob lovingly his wife would scan, 

With, pure affection's throb; 
And Ann her sweetest gave her man, 

Without a sigh or sob. 
There is no draught in all this life 

Like matrimonial liquor, 
Until it sours — and then look out — 

Some one will prove a kicker. 

The household stuff was well arranged, 
And evervthing was new ; 



8 9 



The wooing and the cooing changed, 

The doing was to do. 
But while the gush had passed away, 

There was not yet a bicker — 
The tide was out — when it comes in 

Will some one prove a kicker? 

The conversation turned this day 

On human nature's flaws — 
The tests of life which oft betray 

Life's troubles and their cause ; 
Especially domestic life, 

With jarrings growing thicker, 
Wherein the husband or the wife 

By turns may prove a kicker. 



Bob hinted first, as half afraid, 
'Twas but a kind of guess, 

Perhaps if woman but obeyed 
The jarrings would be less; 

The hint was delicate from Bob, 
But Ann, her breath grew quicker. 

There was an eye-flash that forbode 



Some one might prove a kicker. 

Bob looked around with some surprise — 

The angel — had it fled? 
A frowning wife before his eyes 

Now met his gaze instead. 
The moon went down — the light was gone — 

In such capricious dicker ; 
If thorns amid life's roses were, 

He, too, might prove a kicker. 

From that day out Bob had a claim 
Which grew with passing years ; 
And Ann just knew who was to blame 

90 



For all life's sighs and tears. 
The gossips had a world of talk, 

The bachelors would snicker, 
For Ann could kick— and she would try 

And Bob he was a kicker. 



CIGARS AND CIGARETTES. 

Blow the fog-horn in the fog; 
Seaman, timely use your log ; 
Traveller, watch the hidden bog. 

Give the whole world breathing-room. 
Turn from pestilential fume, 
You who'd shun untimely doom. 

Eating honey, watch the sting — 
Drink pure water from the spring- 
Ever do the wisest thing. 

So to man and womanhood, 
Be the guardian of the good; 

Men may stand where you have stood 
* * * ■ * * * 

Puff and smoke your good cigar, 
Show the world just what you are— 
'Neath a cloud— a guiding star. 

Lend example to the boys — 
Still their merriment and noise — 
Smoke their brains out and their joy 



91 



Early tjttis example set — 
Yours a privilege to let — 
Thev must have their cigarette. 



'&• 



They will tread the path you broke 
They will take and bear the yoke— 
And their lives sro out — in smoke. 



THE LAST OF THE CASS RIVER'S FAMOUS 

FIXES. 

The last of our race are we — 

The great pines of long ago : 
Our cluster, tho' small, each one is as tall 

As those which the axe laid low. 
The lumberman's axe rang keen. 

"\Ye fell with blow upon blow : 
The pines were doomed, borne away and entombed, 

But whither we do not know. 

Like army arrayed we stood. 

Defiant of fiercest storm : 
On hillsides wide by the Cass River's side 

Rose beauty of every form. 
The pride of those days is past. 

Our banners shall wave no more ; 
Since the cluster long spared the slaughtered- dared 

For havoc at last to give o'er. 

The feller against us now stands — 
The winds thro' our branches sigh : 
- a mournful dirge like the ocean's surge. 



9 2 



Foretelling destruction nigh. 
Why could not man spare these few — 

Reserve us for relics dear? 
A mite of the gain procured thro' our reign 

Would brine us a ransom clear. 



■fc> 



The thought of our grandeur's boast, 

Preserved for the days to come, 
Should rise like a gleam to brighten the dream 

Of true gain's lordly sum : 
A tribute to memories dear 

Ourselves would monuments be, 
For was ever such pine brought into line 

As the Cass bore to the sea? 

We fall, the last of our race — 

This ends the day of the pines ; 
No offspring we see to stand up as we, 

Xo garland the future entwines. 
We pass, yet served well our day ; 

Earth's lords can boast of no more; 
They fall as we fell — may we hope it is well — 

A future of use in store.* 



*This was written on the sale made by John Strif- 
fler, of Elkland Township, Tuscola County, Michigan. 
of 80 acres of land upon which a large quantity of 
cork pine was preserved, while ail the surrounding 
country was stripped of the pine which once made it 
so famous. 



93 



JOHN WINTERS. 
(A Character Sketch.) 

I knew him, but knew not his father, 
(Of him there were stories, I'm told) ; 

His name was John Winters — or rather, 
He was named that, for he was so cold. 

When the skies had grown darksome and dreary, 
With the frost king biting and |X)ld, 

John Winters was born, and I fear he 
Just then did begin to get cold. 

He grew up to manhood like others — 
Time's wheels onward steadily roll'd ; 

His sisters were warm and his brothers, 
But John he seemed always so cold. 

All day he would work like a Trojan — 

Get money for truck that he sold : 
When poverty came to his door, John 

Was pitiless, heartless and cold. 

He married a wife from the city — 
Some say that he married for gold ; 

Warm-hearted was she — what a pity ! 
She died in a week from a cold. 

To earth he was bound, and that truly ; 

He grasped all he firmly could hold; 
To get all he could and that duly, 

He strode along sternly and cold. 



94 



As averse unto warmth — to determine. 

Or, shun what a day might unfold, 
A religion he sought, and a sermon 

To preach him out safely — and cold. 

He came to the gate, where he waited 

For some one to open the fold — 
As soon as he fairly was seated 

So many complained they were cold. 

So many things seem passing reason. 
So much may perplex we behold, — 

Whate'er were the changes of season, 

John through the whole year would be cold. 

But nothing will keep from decaying, 

As time sped along he grew old; 
He died. It may go without saying 

That even when dead he was cold. 

WANDERING WILLIE'S REFLECTIONS. 
(The black, silver-speckled trading horse.) 
I once thought myself a respectable horse, 
And that I was owned for better or worse. 
But I met with abuse, and then understood 
My owner begrudged me even my food. 
My limbs were yet sound, my hair it was sleek, 
My habits were neither to bite nor to kick; 
I wasn't a baulker— I'm not of that type, 
But something went wrong with my gullet or pipe; 
It made a harsh noise, 'twas a queer kind of air, 
For which most hearing folks seemed not to care. 

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But my owner decided to jockey me off, 
Though I thought at the time 'twas a little bit rough ; 
And though I could then object with a "neigh," 
There are few who heed much what horses may say. 
'Twas rouguish enough, and the wrong I could feel — 
I had horse sense enough to see into the deal ; 
So on like a bogus dollar I sped, 

Sometimes twice a day changed my board and my bed, 
And felt like a tramp, of self-respect shorn, 
And sometimes I wished I had never been born. 

But a silver lining remains in each cloud, 

So I, I of one thing still remain proud; 

When I got a good chance my ailment I showed, 

And roused true suspicions on rascals who crowed; 

So I in this way human nature could scan, 

And felt myself often superior to man. 

The whole lie, the half lie, just as it would suit. 

Showed men could stoop lower at times than the 

brute. 
Or, not telling itself, showed the wish to deceive, 
What no cloak and no art can of falsehood relieve. 

But exceptions there are to this, I confess; 
Some told all my faults and left nothing to guess; 
They talked it all over, the pro and the con, 
Just as I, if left to myself, would have done. 
They made a square deal, with naught to mislead, 
And T said, they're like horses that are honest indeed; 
For vice I feel scorn ; while the virtues of some 
Must speak for themselves and can't remain dumb; 

9 6 



Tho' ever 'tis strange how the liars will croak 
About honest men, their own doings to cloak. 

I've known vice in horses and much that's amiss. 

But never depravity witnessed like this. 

How low ! I'd rather be spavined and curbed, 

Whipped hard, yea, be by an earthquake disturbed, 

With every joint dislodged from its case, 

And every bone thrown out of its place, 

And every sinew and thew twisted 'round, 

Until hardly the horse anywhere could be found, 

Than be a low liar and following the trade 

Of the class who out of such refuse is made. 



O. K. HAINES' WONDERFUL COW. 

(A true story.) 

Scene I. Time, Winter. Spectator, Jack Frost. 

Haines went to his stable one bitter cold morn, 
When Jack Frost was snipping severe in his scorn, 
For a blizzard was lustily blowing its horn. 

He went to his stable with milk-pail in hand ; 
With a shivering rush, as the time might 'demand, 
With a bold, hasty stride, by his Bossie to stand. 

"Good morning! 'So' Bossie! A little bit cool," 
Quoth Haines as he sat on his low milking stool. 
But Bossie kicked out, "Do you think I'm a fool?" 

"Ha ! a little bit cool? You are come from your 
heater. 



97 



While I am a hunch-backed, shivering critter. 
Bah ! this weather is something that I would call 
bitter." 

"Your touch on my teats, it stings like an arrow ; 
Your fingers I feel scraping down like a harrow ; 
I'm sure that the frost is just entering my marrow." 



Away scampered Bossie with heels in the air, 
For even a cow can show scorn in despair, 
With suspicions aroused she unjustly may fare. 

This remonstrance she somehow in cow fashion 

coughed. 
One look to the stairs and the world there aloft — 
She would find a warm place and a bed that was soft. 

Discomfort was here; up there would be fun; 
So now to her quarters she nimbly would run — 
And basking, would find she was nearer the sun. 

'Twas a kind of cow-heaven she bore in her mind: 

To live as in clover — food freely to find — 

And just chew her cud with a dream sort of grind. 

Much the same as the heaven some think that awaits 
Beyond the world's stairs and the rich pearly gates, 
With nothing to do — where all satiates. 

But good Madam Cow, your fine lolling dream 
Like castles of air must dissolve it would seem ; 
'Twas for idleness hatched, hence its failure, we deem. 

9 8 



So, likewise thought he, the good Mr. Haines, 
When a council of neighbors considered with pains 
The practical part of what all this explains. 

Here, judges and jury before the cow stood — 
They decided high-mindedness could not be good, 
At least if escape from right service the mood. 

The cow had her milk "taken up," as it were, 
When saucy she kicked and ascended the stair, 
To get her milk down the cow T , too, must get there. 

The cow must come down, judge and jury have said; 
Were it up, she might kick her heels o'er their head; 
But down — how easy to thrust down instead ! 

How often 'tis thus; but 'tis useless to frown — 
The cow could this moral declare to the town, 
You can always get plenty of help to go down. 

Scene II. Time, Spring. Spectators, Birds of Passage. 

Behold a fresh adventure at opening of the Spring: 
Bossie thought of taking flight as if a bird on wing. 

She took French leave of Mr. Haines, she knew he 

was "O. K.," 
Whether she remained with him or foraged far away. 

She had not him consulted, he was not looking on, 
And so it puzzled all his brains to think where she had 
gone. 

Perhaps he looked for her too high, perhaps he looked 
too low, 



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But as he searched for he. in vain he never this will 
know. 

He must have worn some "leather," which he handles 

well beside ; 
But this was not the usual thing — now it was plain 

cow-hide. 

Withal he had the parson's help, who is a searching 

man, 
And in pursuit of sinners — this one he failed to scan. 

At length Haines cried, "I give it up, this time she's 

not upstairs; 
And if down lower she is gone, I hope 'tis for repairs." 

Co-Boss ! Co-Boss all o'er the town is heard from 

place to place. 
Co-Boss ! But Bossie's gone ; of her there's not a trace. 

A needle in a haystack could easier be found — 
'Twould almost seem that Bossie was not above the 
ground. 

Once Haines had called a coterie her climbing up to 

stop, 
But now with all the aid he gets he cannot start her up. 

Then, after all this labor and lamentation deep, 
Bossie appears upon the scene as quiet as a sheep, 

But so besmeared with mud and dirt from head to foot 

applied, 
Twould seem as if an added ruse to cover the cow 

hide. 



IOO 



Perhaps to let her easy down she donned had this 

attire, 
And thought of taking a disguise to cool the master's 

ire; 

By slow degrees identity she knew would thus appear, 
With joy to him to find at last 'twas his own Bossie 
dear. 

This only is conjecture, but as up or down we sing, 
She might have sprung this great surprise to show 
that it was Spring. 



MISS SUSIE McDOO AND JIM WHACK. 

(A Michigan Story.) 
Canto I. 

A young schoolma'am named Susie McDoo 

Taught District No. Six ; 
She had clever ways, and a way of her own 

If any a trap would fix. 

She had suitors, too, those were bachelor days, 

With new homes in the woods, 
With never a female hand to grace, 

Or place the household goods. 

While Susie was such a beautiful girl, 

With eyes so splendidly bright, 
And cheeks as flush as the morning blush 

And step so trim and light, 



IOI 



It wasn't any wonder at all Jim Whack 

Had held her in his eye, 
And tried by many a method and knack 

To pop a word on the sly. 

But do what he would, this same Jim Whack 

Failed in his earnest "try," 
Though courage at all he did not lack, 

For he felt he must do or die. 

Miss Susie had chosen a nearer route 

To and fro from her school : 
'Twas through the woods, for the country was new 

The path was shady and cool. 

A flowing stream intersected it 

With a rushing kind of jog, 
And from ridge to ridge the spanning bridge 

Was a large old-fashioned log. 

Jim Whack was miffed; he had gotten the mitt 

From Susie one day they met ; 
Still every whit of Jim it was grit, 

And firmly his teeth he set. 

He covertly planned to watch and wait — 

From the log he'd peel the bark; 
Then Susie, in passing, would slip on it, 

And plunge in the stream so dark ; 

While he like a hero would boldly rush 
To rescue her from the tide, 



I02 



Proclaiming his love with a steaming gush, 
And win her to be his bride. 

Jim Whack thus waited expectant a while, 
With a grin on his face half grim, 

Which later on spoke itself in a smile, 
How soon he'd be in the swim. 

For Susie was seen approaching the log — 
She paused — there was no other way; 

She started to cross — with a terrible toss 
Her feet played a treacherous play. 

But Susie was quick, or luck was in it — 

A-straddle the log went she ; 
Tho' it took her breath as she looked beneath, 

She was safe from that roaring sea. 

Yet out on the slimy log she hung, 
Nor forward nor backward could go ; 

Was there ever a maid in such helpless plight, 
Or nearer an overthrow? 

But gallantly then Jim Whack appeared, 

On his own purpose bent, 
With a "Susie McDoo, what can I do 

In this predicament?" 

"It looks as if things were coming my way — 
Some things can't be done alone — 

Now help will be lent if you only consent 
Henceforth to be my own." 



103 



And thus for an hour — to her 'twas an age — 

He talked with a steady clack; 
While all that he said was meant to engage 

Miss Susie with him to whack. 

As feeling quite sure she was cornered at last, 

He bantered his prey in the trap, 
While Susie thought as each point he brought 

To bear on her mishap, 

" 'Twas a trick surely his to peel that log — 

As mean as it could be — 
But I — I (she thought) must outwit the rogue, 

My meaning he may not see." 

And so, as grown tired, she said, "I consent; 

You can lead me across this tide." 
Her fair hand he took, while adroit was her look, 

Until safe on the other side. 

Then a blistering tongue shot out like flame: 

"What are you now, Jim Whack? 
You have failed in your purpose, which I must scorn 

As dastardly and black. 

"You have failed as a suitor, and here as a man, 

You'd bind, but now I am free; 
Do you think I'd marry a wretch like you, 

Who'd force me his wife to be? 

"You cringe! you dare not look in my eye, 

Nor cross again my path!" 
Jim Whack will say to this day, " 'Tis not safe 

To rouse a schoolma'am's wrath." 



104 



Canto II. 

Days passed into weeks, months flowed into years — 
Time sped right along, as ever it flew — 

The children that Susie had taught forged along, 
And so unto men and to women they grew. 

They courted — they married — they planned how to 
live, 

As the young ever have and seems ever will do; 
While Susie no longer kept wielding the rod, 

Nor strolling the wood-path she used to pursue. 

The country no more is a wilderness tract, 

But that which good husbandry ever will make; 

The pioneer rushed his work on from the start; 
He more had to live for than work for work's sake. 

The roads became graded, the hills were cut down, 
The by-paths had ceased with the fence in display; 

The trade of the country met half-way the town — 
And things were just moving — and on, we should 
say. 

Jim Whack was a bachelor yet, by the way, 

Still strong is his arm, which means nothing new ; 

And Susie's brown hair was sprinkled with gray, 
But her name is unchanged — it is Susie McDoo. 

Here something befell we deem right to record — 
Time tempers the spirit of woman and man — 

And some things we know may with fate so accord, 
They seem as improvements on that which we plan. 



105 



Dear Susie her wheel loved so well that a spin 
Was a frequent occurrence with her on the road ; 

And she oftentimes, too, must pass and repass 
A beautiful farm and a pleasant abode. 

Here spanned a road-bridge — the farm had its own — 
A footway — a log, old-fashioned and long, 

'Neath which ran a brook that sang on its way 
What poets so often have woven in song. 

Was aught here to Susie in modified mood 
To fill with a passage a chapter of yore ? 

There's no certain proof whatsoever of this — 
Events and not guesses, we trust to them more. 

Away and away Susie one day had sped, 

Till a cloud-burst broke loose — a deluge of rain ; 

When the fury had passed, tho' torrents roared hoarse, 
She mounted her wheel to speed back again. 

She was nearing that stream, feeling sure of the 

bridge, 
Though, bless her dear heart ! it was flooded and gone ; 
She knew not of this, for the opposite ridge 

Showed a large touring car, and swift on the run. 

One leap — in the torrent poor Susie plunged down; 

To flounder and drown — must this be her fate? 
While the rushed automobile, tho' swiftly it flew, 

Was checked, tot a moment of being too late. 

It was Jim — Jim Whack. O goodness, what now? 
Away floated Susie adown the dark stream! 

1 06 



But the log is still there, and Jim on the run, 
.Tho' to save her would almost a miracle seem. 

The log he has gained, and bore her to land, 

Tho' lifeless seemed she, and he wept at the thought ; 

But aid and restoratives timely applied, 

And love, perhaps, too, her to consciousness brought. 

Then looked she at him, with a tear in her eye— 
And looked at the waters in anger that sped — 

"You have saved me — God bless you ! — how ever can I 
The debt of my gratitude pay?" she low said. 

Jim Whack did not dictate then unto her how; 

He simply replied, "I've something out there 
By which I can fetch you safe home even now ; 

Your predicament is, you need handling with care." 

Adroit was her look, but it came with a smile; 

The log was in evidence still, it would seem, 
But nothing was here to indicate wile — 

The present how real — the past was a dream! 

A month after this a big touring car 

Was spinning along, altho' gentle in speed; 

'Twas a case of true love that had weathered the 
storm, 
And Susie and Jim are so happy indeed. 



107 



JOHN RUSTLER'S NOVEL GARAGE 
INVENTION. 

Hang your jaw down a little if Garage you name ; 
Tis French and "Gerohsz," tho' this spelling is lame. 
You must many times say it and lubricate free, 
If you swing it at all as it rightly should be. 
But some day step into John Rustler's place, 
With this sign overhead — a surprise you will face. 

John Rustler, a genius, and of the first brand, 
You will find there at work, with a smile at command. 
And why? I must tell you 'twas not always there — 
He has worked out an invention novel and rare. 

John once took a whim, for a time he would quit 
The hammer and anvil for a job in a pit — 
A pit in a garage — it brought him to this — 
Foul daubing, the work he by no means could miss. 
'Twas a pitiful sight to look into that pit 
And see all the slime that would gather in it. 
To see what a mortal down there must endure — 
Half-smothered at times, out of breath to be sure ; 
And along with all else, the drip, the drip, drip 
Of the autos above with their slavering lip. 

But John was too knowing for long to stay there, 
Since more than machines might get out of repair; 
And to stick to his job he got onto the floor, 
And kept at his business as strong as before. 
Otherwise he was under the great touring cars, 
With hammers and tongs and pinchers and bars ; 
Still onto his back in the grime on the floor — 

108 



Still covered with mud and all else as before ; 

Like a crab must crawl backward or slide him around, 

As if only just made for mop-wiping the ground. 

He certainly seemed as the under-dog there — 

Repairing, yet himself getting out of repair. 

Since wallowing thus on side, belly and back 

Is a good invitation for some part to crack ; 

For those pesky machines with intricate turns 

Must work a commotion that wriggles and churns — 

Sure to break! Then who — who can tell us to whom 

The butter belongs when to "next" one gives room? 

But John is a genius, a true-blood, 'twould seem, 
And while he thus worked kept contriving a scheme 
Whereby a live floater he might stretch on the floor, 
Move just as he pleased — his skill show once more. 
So what does he do but fashion a stretcher, 
With castors for wheels; lined, cushioned, a f etcher; 
With headrest, sidecurves, such an elegant thing, 
'Tis as free on the floor as an airship on wing. 
Ho! John works abed — just think the contrivance! 
Tho' with sloth not by any means 'tis a connivance. 
But clean from all filth you'll find our good John, 
With smiles on his face, just as smileth the sun. 
The autos he works on he handles about, 
And if needed, he turns their insides clear out, 
The same as the doctors take patients apart 
To find all about them, lung, stomach and heart — 
Half curious at times, or as needful to know, 
Then will set them together again- — and to go. 
John does all of this, with fame also growing. 
And the secret is here, he the art has of knowing ; 



109 



And knowing, he does things. The very best thing 
For himself and for others, and well he may sing. 



THE SONG OF THE CASS. 

Not far away from the "forks'' of the Cass 
The bones of the slaughtered were found: 

These were Indian bones, low laid in a heap, 
Like the slain of a battle-ground. 

For many long years they had lain in the earth — 

By their kin forgotten were they; 
So passes away the heat and the strife 

Of many an angry affray! 

And many leagues down from the source of the Cass, 

In the deep, weird wilderness shade, 
An Indian tradition tells how the red men 

Once a terrible conflict made. 

A fierce, fierce battle was fought to the death, 

Until none of one tribe was left. 
What a slaughter was this where no one remained 

To grieve o'er the fate that bereft! 

How gruesome the days by this river were seen 

Ere the pioneer's axe rang there ! 
And dismal the day of the Fire-King's sweep,* 

Laying much of her country bare ! 

And well might she grieve for her forests gone — 

Her pride of a thousand years — 
And well might she weep o'er the homeless ones, 

If a river can run with tears. 



IIO 



Still the Cass flows on and murmurs her song 
Half- joyous tho' plaintive and low ; 

Tis as if forgotten the dolorous day 
'Midst beauties afresh that grow. 

The dead-past forgotten — the sloping hills 
The farmer now tills for his bread ; 

So quickly the changes of time speed on, 
On the heels of the past to tread ! 

So quickly the changes of time speed on — 
And wrong is removed from its place — 

How better to wait for the fullness of time 
Than battle or chafe in disgrace! 

O! teach us this lesson, thou flowing Cass, 

O ! teach it a thousand years ! 
As taught may it lessen humanity's strife 

And the river of human tears ! 



: Fire of 1881. 



AT SUNSET. 

Fades, fades on our vision life's horoscope now ; 

Its star shines but dimly— the day is far spent ; 
Day had clouds — night is near — has it light on its 
brow, 

Or aught to retain of the favor it lent? 

Earth is earth : and its labor perchance might seem 
vain, 

The travail of life prove a burden too great, 



III 



If by some occult law we had here to remain 
Ever bound to this frail, to this mortal estate, 

And endure — need we tell of the .things we endure ? 

Ah no! they are known — each one knows his own 
sore. 
Seek we favor? If Heaven's we seek to secure, 

For this the false world oft will hate us the more. 

But not long — nor constrained do we bow to the yoke, 
Its blessings are here, and secure its reward; 

Omnipotent promises who can revoke? 

Immutable pledges our safety must guard. 

Life changes — companions were with us a space ; 

They left us — how lonely 'midst trials and tears ! 
We long to rejoin them, and more as apace 

We number Time's footfalls, the tread of the years. 

Drawing near to the brink, we need strength to the 
end; 
Have the swellings of Jordan been smote by the rod ? 
Lift the veil off the heart, meet us Brother and 
Friend — 
May we see in the MAN the salvation of God. 

Strength of life! Light of hope! shed thy light on 
the eve ; 

Gild the clouds that bedim at the close of the day ! 
Tho' much that is dear in the parting we leave, 

To the City of God we would hasten away ! 



112 



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